HISTORY
OF THE
MOORISH EMPIRE
IN EUROPE
BY
S. P. SCOTT
AUTHOR OF “THROUGH SPAIN”
Corduba famosa locuples de nomine dicta,
Inclyta deliciis, rebus quoque splendida cunctis
HROSWITHA, PASSIO S. PELAGII
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1904
COPYRIGHT, 1904
BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
Published March, 1904
_Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U. S. A._
PREFACE
[Illustration]
This work has engaged the attention of the author for more than twenty
years. Its object is an attempt to depict the civilization of that
great race whose achievements in science, literature, and the arts have
been the inspiration of the marvellous progress of the present age. The
review of this wide-spread influence, whose ramifications extend to the
limits of both Europe and America, has required the introduction of
some matter apparently extraneous, but which, when considered in its
general relations to the subject, will be found to be not foreign to
the purpose of these volumes.
The list of authorities cited does not, by any means, include all
that have been examined. Many, from which comparatively few facts
have been gleaned, have been omitted. Among the works that have been
made the subject of careful research, and have yielded most valuable
information--in addition to the Arabic and Spanish chronicles--are
those of Al-Makkari, Romey, Rosseuw St. Hilaire, Le Bon, Sédillot,
and Casiri. The utter unreliability of Conde, who compiled the
only detailed history of the Moors of Spain, is well known, and
his statements have not been adopted except when amply verified.
The histories of the late R. Dozy, Professor in the University of
Leyden, which for learning, accuracy, impartiality, and critical
acumen have few rivals in this branch of literature, have been the
principal dependence of the author, who gladly takes this opportunity
to acknowledge his obligations to the labors of one whose genius and
attainments are recognized by every Oriental scholar in Europe.
It may seem a work of supererogation to traverse once more a portion
of the ground covered by Irving and Prescott. The final episode in the
fall of a great empire could not, however, with propriety be omitted.
Moreover, the accounts of these two famous writers swarm with errors,
as any one can readily discover who will consult the chronicles of
Pulgar and Bernaldez, eye-witnesses, and consequently the most reliable
authorities concerning what they relate. The quotations of Irving,
it may be added, indicate a surprising want of familiarity with the
Castilian language.
That writer best fulfils the office of an historian who passes before
the mind of the reader, as in a panorama, not merely the more striking
events of war and diplomacy, but circumstances often regarded as
unimportant, yet which illustrate, as no others can do, the condition
of the masses as well as the policy of the prince; which indicate the
condition of public and private morals; which exhibit the effects
of domestic manners, of ingenious inventions, of literary progress
and artistic development; which reveal the unfolding of national
taste--which present, in short, the portraiture of every material and
intellectual feature necessary to the elucidation of the character,
the aspirations, and the foibles of a people. With this end in view,
sources of information usually regarded as beneath the dignity of an
historical work have been drawn on for material in the following pages.
The author cherishes no feeling of animosity towards the Spanish
people. He remembers with pleasure a long sojourn among them. He can
never forget the dignified courtesy of their men, the incomparable
grace and fascinations of their women. Their faults are those entailed
by a pernicious inheritance and a corrupt religion, which have
perverted their principles, destroyed their power, and tarnished their
glory.
As the greater part of this book was written before 1898, any
unfavorable criticism of Spanish politics or manners which it contains
must be attributed to a desire to adhere to historic truth, and not
to a contemptible prejudice engendered by our unfortunate “War of
Humanity.”
PHILADELPHIA, 1903.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I
THE ANCIENT ARABIANS
PAGE
Topography of Arabia--Its History--Influence of Other
Nations--Ancient Civilization--Commerce--Persistence
of Customs and Language--Character of the Bedouin--His
Independence--His Predatory Instincts--Power of Tribal
Connection--War the Normal Condition of Existence in the
Desert--The Virtues and Vices of the Arabs--Blood-Revenge
and its Destructive Consequences--Absence of
Caste--Condition of Woman--Marriage--Religion--Astral
Worship--Idolatry--Phallicism--Human Sacrifices--Importance
and Power of the Jews--Christianity in Arabia--Poetry, its
Subjects and Character--The Moallakat--Popularity of the
Arab Poet--His License--Influence of Arabic Civilization
and Culture on Subsequent Ages 1
CHAPTER II
THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND INFLUENCE OF ISLAM
Comparative Religion, its Interest as a Study--The Benefits
of Islam--Arabia at the Birth of Mohammed--Condition
of Christendom and the Byzantine Empire--Popular
Idea of the Prophet--His Family--His Early Life--The
First Revelation--Persecution of the New Sect--The
Hegira--Growing Prosperity of Islam--Character of
Mohammed--Causes of His Success--Polygamy--The Koran--Its
Arrangement, its Legends, its Sublime Maxims, its
Absurdities--Its Obligations to other Creeds--The
Kiblah--The Pilgrimage and its Ceremonies--Reforms
accomplished by Islam--Universal Worship of
Force--Corruption of the Religion of Mohammed--Its
Wonderful Achievements--Mohammed the Apostle of God 57
CHAPTER III
THE CONQUEST OF AL-MAGHREB
General Disorder following the Death of
Mohammed--Regulations of Islam--Progress of the Moslem
Arms--Northern Africa, the Land of the Evening--Its
Fertility--Its Population--Expedition of Abdallah--Defeat
of the Greeks--Invasion of Okbah--Foundation of
Kairoan--March of Hassan--Ancient Carthage--Its Influence
on Europe--Its Splendid Civilization--Its Maritime Power,
its Colonies, its Resources--Description of the City--Its
Architectural Grandeur--Its Harbors, Temples, and Public
Edifices--Roman Carthage--Its Luxury and Depravity--Its
Destruction by the Moslems--Wars with the Berbers--Musa
appointed General--His Romantic History--His Character--He
subdues Al-Maghreb--Africa incapable of Permanent
Civilization 128
CHAPTER IV.
THE VISIGOTHIC MONARCHY
Origin and Character of the Goths--Their Invasion of
the Peninsula--Power of the Clergy--Ecclesiastical
Councils--The Jews--The Visigothic Code--Profound
Wisdom of Its Enactments--Provisions against
Fraud and Injustice--Severe Penalties--Its
Definition of the Law--Condition of the
Mechanical Arts--Architecture--Byzantine
Influence--Manufactures--Votive
Crowns--Agriculture--Literature--Medicine--Slave
Labor--Imitation of Roman Customs--Parallel between
the Goths and the Arabs--Coincidence of Sentiments and
Habits--Causes of National Decline--Permanent Influence of
the Gothic Polity 165
CHAPTER V.
THE INVASION AND CONQUEST OF SPAIN.
General Condition and Physical Features of the Spanish
Peninsula--Various Classes of the Population--Supremacy of
the Church--Tyranny of the Visigothic Kings--Fatal Policy
of Witiza--Accession of Roderick--Count Julian--Invasion
of Tarik--Battle of the Guadalete--Its Momentous
Results--Progress of the Moslems--Arrival of Musa--His
Success--Immense Booty secured by the Victors--Quarrel of
Tarik and Musa--Interference of the Khalif--Submission of
the Goths--Musa’s Vast Scheme of Conquest--The Two Generals
ordered to Damascus--The Triumphal Procession through
Africa--Fate of Musa--Causes and Effects of the Moslem
Occupation of Spain 204
CHAPTER VI
THE EMIRATE
Abd-al-Aziz--His Wise Administration--His Execution
ordered by the Khalif--Ayub-Ibn-Habib--His
Reforms--Al-Horr--Al-Samh--His Invasion of France--His
Defeat and Death--Abd-al-Rahman--Feud of the Maadites and
Kahtanites--Its Disastrous Effects--Anbasah-Ibn-Sohim--His
Ability--He penetrates to the Rhone and is
killed--Yahya-Ibn-Salmah--Othman-Ibn-Abu-Nesa
--Hodheyfa-Ibn-al-Awass--Al-Haytham-Ibn-Obeyd
--Mohammed-Ibn-Abdallah--Abd-al-Rahman--His
Popularity--Proclaims the Holy War--Treason
of Othman-Ibn-Abu-Nesa--The Emir attempts
the Conquest of France--Character of Charles
Martel--Battle of Poitiers--Death of
Abd-al-Rahman--Abd-al-Melik--Okbah-Ibn-al-Hejaj--His
Wisdom and Capacity--Charles Martel ravages
Provence--Berber Revolt in Africa--Victory of the
Rebels--Abd-al-Melik-Ibn-Kottam--Balj-Ibn-Beschr--Thalaba
--Abu-al-Khattar--Condition of Western Europe--Unstable and
Corrupt Administration of the Emirs--Importance of the
Battle of Poitiers 266
CHAPTER VII
FOUNDATION OF THE SPANISH MONARCHY
The Northern Provinces of Spain--Their Desolate and
Forbidding Character--Climate--Population--Religion
--Peculiarities of the Asturian Peasantry--Pelayus
--His Birth and Antecedents--He collects an Army
--Obscure Origin of the Spanish Kingdom--Extraordinary
Conditions under which it was founded--Battle of
Covadonga--Rout of the Arabs--Increase of the Christian
Power--Favila--Alfonso I.--His Enterprise and Conquests
--His Policy of Colonization--Survival of the Spirit of
Liberty--Religious Abuses--State of Society--Beginning
of the Struggle for Empire 337
CHAPTER VIII
THE OMMEYADES; REIGN OF ABD-AL-RAHMAN I.
The Ommeyade Family--Its Origin--Its Hostility to
Mohammed--The Syrian Princes--Their Profligacy--Splendors
of Damascus--Luxury of the Syrian Capital--Rise of the
Abbasides--Proscription of the Defeated Faction--Escape of
Abd-al-Rahman--His Romantic Career--He enters Spain--His
Success--Defeat and Dethronement of Yusuf--Constant
Insurrections--Enterprise of the Khalif of Bagdad--Its
Disastrous Termination--Invasion of Charlemagne--Slaughter
of Roncesvalles--Death of Abd-al-Rahman--His Character--His
Services to Civilization--Foundation of the Great
Mosque--The Franks reconquer Septimania 367
CHAPTER IX
REIGN OF HISCHEM I.; REIGN OF AL-HAKEM I.
Custom of Royal Succession violated by the Will
of Abd-al-Rahman--Accession of Hischem--Revolt of
Suleyman and Abdallah--They are routed and their
Armies dispersed--Clemency of the Emir--Invasion of
Septimania--Defeat of the Franks--Indecisive Results
of the Campaign--Public Works of Hischem--His Noble
Character--His Partiality for Theologians--The
Southern Suburb of Cordova--Death of Hischem--General
Distrust of Al-Hakem--Suleyman and Abdallah again in
Rebellion--Civil War--The Gothic March--Siege and
Capture of Barcelona--Apathy of the Emir--Importance
of the Conquest--The Edrisite Dynasty--Disturbances
at Toledo--“The Day of the Ditch”--The Royal
Body-Guard--Revolt of the Faquis--Its Results--League of
the Asturian and Frankish Princes--Legend of St. James the
Apostle--Death of Al-Hakem--His Character 421
CHAPTER X
REIGN OF ABD-AL-RAHMAN II.; REIGN OF MOHAMMED
Accession of Abd-al-Rahman II.--Defection of
Abdallah--Invasion of the Gothic March--Embassy from
the Greek Emperor--Revolt of Merida--Sedition at
Toledo--Incursion of the Normans--Persecution of the
Christians--Death of Abd-al-Rahman--His Love of Pomp--His
Virtues--His Patronage of Art and Letters--Ziryab--His
Versatility--Conspiracy of Tarub--Stratagem of
Mohammed--His Bigotry--Toledo again Revolts--Rise of
the Beni-Kasi--War with the Asturias--Rebellion of
Ibn-Merwan--The Serrania de Ronda--Ibn-Hafsun, his Origin
and Exploits--Death and Character of Mohammed--Incipient
Decadence of the Moslem Power 475
CHAPTER XI
REIGN OF AL-MONDHIR; REIGN OF ABDALLAH
Parallel between the Policy of the Moorish and
Asturian Courts--Alfonso III.--His Conquests--Energy
of Al-Mondhir--Siege of Bobastro--Stratagem of
Ibn-Hafsun--The Emir is Poisoned--Abdallah ascends the
Throne--Conditions of Parties and Sects--Prevalence of
Disorder--Insurrection at Elvira--Success of the Arab
Faction--Disturbances at Seville--General Disaffection of
the Provinces--Ibn-Hafsun defeated at Aguilar--Disastrous
and Permanent Effects of the Continuance of Anarchy--Sudden
Death of Abdallah--Important Political Changes wrought by a
Generation of Civil Warfare 529
CHAPTER XII
REIGN OF ABD-AL-RAHMAN III.
Eminent Qualities of the New Ruler--His Firmness--Rapid
Subjection of the Rebel Territory--Dissensions of
the Christians--Defeat of Ibn-Abi-Abda--Death of
Ibn-Hafsun--Impaired Power of the Arab Nobles--War with
the Fatimites of Africa--Rout of Junquera--Abd-al-Rahman
assumes the Title of Khalif--Its Significance--Invasion
of Castile--Reverse of Alhandega--Civil Wars of the
Christians--The Princes of Leon and Navarre visit the
Moslem Court--Abd-al-Rahman dies at the Age of Seventy
Years---His Remarkable Achievements--The Greek and German
Embassies--The Saracens in France and Italy--The Slaves
and their Influence--Plot of Abdallah--Condition of the
Country under Abd-al-Rahman III.--Cordova--Its Wealth and
Magnificence--The Royal Villas--The City and Palace of
Medina-al-Zahrâ--Melancholy Reflections of the Greatest of
the Khalifs 563
CHAPTER XIII
REIGN OF AL-HAKEM II.
Splendid Ceremonial at the Accession of Al-Hakem
II.--His Wise and Prudent Measures--Ordoño seeks an
Audience--His Baseness--Successful Expedition against
the Christians--Disturbances in Africa--Army of the
Khalif Defeated--The Berber Chieftains are corrupted,
and their Forces disband--Importance of Cordova as a
Religious Centre--Description of the Great Mosque--Death
of Al-Hakem--His Literary Attainments--His Patronage of
Letters--The Library--Institutions of Learning--General
Prevalence of Education--Public Improvements--The Khalif
the Exemplar of the Highest Culture of his Age--Prosperity
of the Empire 634
CHAPTER XIV
REIGN OF HISCHEM II.
Origin of Ibn-abi-Amir-Al-Mansur--The Scene in the
Garden--Genius and Attainments of the Youthful
Statesman--His Sudden Rise to Power--Influence of
the Eunuchs--Their Conspiracy Detected--Ibn-abi-Amir
aspires to Supreme Authority--He is appointed
Hajib--Ruin of his Rivals--Reorganization of the
Civil and Military Service--Systematic Degradation of
Hischem --The Palace of Zahira--The Hajib becomes
Master of the Empire--Successful Wars with the
Christians--Disturbances in Africa--Destruction of
Leon--Sack of Santiago--Death of Al-Mansur--His Great
Services to the State--His Unbroken Series of Military
Triumphs--Al-Modhaffer--Abd-al-Rahman--Mohammed--Suleyman
--Disappearance of Hischem--Rapid Disintegration of the
Empire 683
AUTHORITIES CONSULTED IN THE
PREPARATION OF THIS WORK
(To promote facility of reference, the following list has been
classified not only alphabetically by authors, but also by
languages.)
ENGLISH.
AL-HARIRI--Makamat. 8vo. London, 1850.
ALI BEY--Travels. 2 vols. 4to. London, 1816.
AL-MAKKARI--History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain. 2
vols. 4to. London, 1840.
ANDERSON--History of Commerce. 4 vols. 4to. London, 1789.
ARNOLD--Ishmael: The Natural History of Islamism. 8vo. London,
1859.
BEATTIE--Castles and Abbeys of England. 2 vols. 8vo. London.
BERINGTON--Literary History of the Middle Ages. 4to. London,
1814.
BLUNT--A Pilgrimage to Nejd. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1881.
BOSWORTH-SMITH--Mohammed and Mohammedanism. 8vo. London, 1876.
BOWER--History of the Popes. 3 vols. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1844.
BRAND--Popular Antiquities. 8vo. London, 1810.
BURCKHARDT--Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys. 2 vols. 8vo.
London, 1831.
BURCKHARDT--Travels in Arabia. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1829.
BURCKHARDT--Travels in Nubia. 4to. London, 1822.
BURTON--A Pilgrimage to Medina and Mecca. 12mo. New York, 1856.
---- Chronicle of London--1089–1483. 4to. London, 1827.
COSMO III.--Travels in England. Folio. London, 1821.
CUTTS--Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages. 8vo. London,
1886.
DAVENPORT-ADAMS--Witch, Warlock, and Magician. 8vo. London, 1889.
DAVENPORT--An Apology for Mohammed and the Koran. 8vo. London,
1869.
DAVIS--Carthage and her Remains. 8vo. London, 1861.
DEUTZ--Islam. 8vo. London.
D’ISRAELI--Curiosities of Literature. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1807.
DRAPER--History of the Intellectual Development of Europe. 8vo.
New York, 1875.
EMILLIANNE--History of the Monastic Orders. 12mo. London, 1677.
FERGUSSON--History of Architecture. 2 vols. 8vo. New York, 1885.
FINLAY--History of the Byzantine Empire. 8vo. London, 1856.
FINN--History of the Jews in Spain and Portugal. 8vo. London,
1841.
FORT--Medical Economy during the Middle Ages. 8vo. New York,
1883.
FOSBROOKE--British Monarchism. 8vo. London, 1843.
FRITH--Life of Giordano Bruno. 8vo. London, 1887.
GIBBON--History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 8
vols. 8vo. London, 1855.
HALL--Chronicle of England. 4to. London, 1809.
HALL--Society in the Elizabethan Age. 8vo. London, 1886.
HARDY--Eastern Monarchism. 8vo. London, 1850.
HAZLITT--Popular Antiquities of Great Britain. 3 vols. 8vo.
London, 1870.
HECKER--The Epidemics of the Middle Ages. 8vo. London, 1844.
HIGGINS--An Apology for the Life and Character of Mohammed. 8vo.
London, 1829.
HODGETTS--The English in the Middle Ages. 8vo. London, 1885.
HONE--Ancient Mysteries Described. 8vo. London, 1823.
HONE--Popular Works. 4 vols. 8vo. London.
HOWITT--History of the Supernatural. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1863.
HUEFFER--The Troubadours. 8vo. London, 1878.
IBN-AL-HAKEM--History of the Mohammedan Conquest of Spain. 8vo.
Göttingen, 1858.
IBN-HAUKAL--Oriental Geography. 4to. London, 1800.
IBN-KHALLIKAN--Biographical Dictionary. 4 vols. 4to. London,
1842.
ISAACS--Ceremonies, Customs, etc. of the Jews. 8vo. London.
JACKSON--An Account of the Empire of Morocco. 4to. London, 1809.
JENNINGS--Phallicism. 8vo. London, 1884.
JENNINGS--The Rosicrucians. 8vo. London, 1879.
JESSUP--The Women of the Arabs. 8vo. New York.
JONES--History of the Waldenses. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1816.
JONES--Moallakat. 4to. London, 1783.
JONES--The Alhambra. 2 vols. Folio. London, 1830.
JONES--Works. 7 vols. 4to. London, 1804.
KENRICK--History of Phœnicia. 8vo. London, 1845.
KINGSLEY--Alexandria and Her Schools. 8vo. Cambridge, 1854.
KINGTON--History of Frederick II. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1862.
KNIGHT--Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology. 8vo.
Boston, 1836.
KNIGHT--The Normans in Sicily. 8vo. London. 1838.
KNIGHT--The Worship of Priapus. 4to. London, 1865.
KOELLER--Mohammed and Mohammedanism. 8vo. London, 1889.
KROEGER--The Minnesingers of Germany. 8vo. New York, 1873.
LACROIX--The Arts of the Middle Ages. Folio. London.
LANE--Arabian Society in the Middle Ages. 8vo. London, 1883.
LANE--Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. 2 vols. 8vo.
London, 1842.
LANE-POOLE--The Art of the Saracens in Egypt. 8vo. London, 1886.
LANE-POOLE--The Speeches of Mohammed. 12mo. London, 1882.
LEA--History of Sacerdotal Celibacy. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1867.
LEA--Superstition and Force. 8vo. Philadelphia, 1866.
LEWIS--An Essay on the Origin and Formation of the Romance
Languages. 8vo. London, 1839.
LEWIS--Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients. 8vo.
London, 1862.
LIMBORCH--History of the Inquisition. 4to. London, 1731.
LINDO--History of the Jews in Spain and Portugal. 8vo. London,
1848.
MACAULAY--History of England. 5 vols. 8vo. New York.
MAITLAND--The Albigenses and Waldenses. 8vo. London, 1832.
MAITLAND--The Dark Ages. 8vo. London, 1844.
MALCOLM--Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London. 6 vols.
8vo. London, 1810.
MARKHAM--Irrigation in Eastern Spain. 8vo. London.
MCLENNAN--Studies in Ancient History. 8vo. London, 1876.
MCMURDO--History of Portugal. 8vo. London, 1888.
MEER HASSAN ALI--Observations on the Mussulmans of India. 2
vols. 8vo. London, 1832.
MERRICK--Life and Religion of Mohammed. 8vo. Boston, 1850.
MILMAN--History of Latin Christianity. 8 vols. 8vo. New York,
1859.
MUIR--Annals of the Early Caliphate. 8vo. London, 1883.
MUIR--Life of Mohammed. 8vo. London, 1878.
MURPHY--History of the Mahometan Empire in Spain. 4to. London,
1816.
NEWTON--Principia. 8vo. New York.
OCKLEY--History of the Saracens. 8vo. London. 1848.
OMARAH--Yaman. 8vo. London, 1892.
OSBORN--Islam under the Khalifs of Bagdad. 8vo. London, 1878.
PALGRAVE--A Year’s Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia.
12mo. New York, 1871.
PALGRAVE--Essays on Eastern Subjects. 8vo. London, 1872.
PETTIGREW--Superstitions connected with the Practice of
Medicine. 8vo. London, 1844.
PLUMPTRE--History of Pantheism. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1879.
PRICE--Essay toward the History of Arabia. 4to. London, 1824.
RHOÏDIS--Pope Joan. 8vo. London, 1886.
RUSSELL--The Natural History of Aleppo. 4to. London, 1856.
RUTHERFORD--The Troubadours. 8vo. London, 1873.
SHURRIEF--Customs of the Mussulmans of India. 8vo. London, 1832.
SMITH--Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia. 8vo. Cambridge,
1885.
STIRLING-MAXWELL--Don John of Austria. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1883.
SYED-AHMED--Essays on the Life of Mohammed. 8vo. London, 1870.
THOMSON--History of Chemistry. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1830.
URQUHART--The Pillars of Hercules. 2 vols. 8vo. New York, 1850.
WELLSTED--Travels in Arabia. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1837.
WILLIAMS--On Hinduism. 12mo. London, 1882.
WRIGHT--Early Christianity in Arabia. 8vo. London, 1855.
WRIGHT--Manners and Sentiments of England during the Middle
Ages. 4to. London, 1862.
WRIGHT--Narratives of Sorcery and Magic. 2 vols. 8vo. London,
1851.
WRIGHT--Womankind in Western Europe. 4to. London, 1869.
FRENCH.
ABD-AL-RAHMAN-AL-SUFI--Description des Étoiles Fixes. 4to. St.
Petersbourg, 1874.
ABD-AL-REZZAQ--Traité de Matière Médicale Arabe. 8vo. Paris,
1874.
ABD-EL-HALIM--Roudh-el-Kartas. 8vo. Paris, 1859.
ABUL HASSAN ALI--Lettres. 8vo. Paris.
AL-KALIOUBY--Quelques Chapitres de Médecine Arabe. 8vo. Paris,
1856.
---- Anecdotes Arabes et Musulmanes. 12mo. Paris, 1772.
ARCOLEO--Palerme et la Civilisation en Sicile. 8vo. Paris, 1898.
ARNOULT--Mémoires de la Langue Romane. 3 vols. 8vo. Toulouse,
1842.
ASTRUC--Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire de la Faculté de
Médecine de Montpellier. 4to. Paris, 1777.
AUBERTIN--Histoire de la Langue et la Littérature Françaises au
Moyen Age. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1876.
BABELON--Du Commerce des Arabes dans le Nord de l’Europe. 8vo.
Paris, 1882.
BAILLY--Histoire de l’Astronomie Ancienne et Moderne. 5 vols.
4to. Paris, 1781.
BAISSAC--Les Grands Jours de la Sorcellerie. 8vo. Paris, 1890.
BARBIER DE MEYNARD--Ibrahim. 8vo. Paris, 1869.
BARET--Espagne et Provence. 8vo. Paris, 1857.
BARET--Les Troubadours. 8vo. Paris, 1857.
BARGÈS--Histoire des Beni-Zeiyan, Rois de Tlemcen. 8vo. Paris,
1887.
BARGÈS--Recherches sur les Colonies Phéniciennes. 8vo. Paris,
1878.
BARGÈS--Tlemcen. 8vo. Paris, 1859.
BARRAU--Monfort et les Albigeois. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1840.
BARTHÉLEMY SAINT-HILAIRE--Du Bouddhisme. 8vo. Paris, 1855.
BARTHÉLEMY SAINT-HILAIRE--Mahomet et le Coran. 8vo. Paris, 1865.
BASSET--La Poësie Arabe Anté-Islamique. 12mo. Paris, 1880.
BATISSIER--Histoire de l’Art Monumental. 8vo. Paris, 1860.
BAUDRILLART--Histoire du Luxe. 4 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1880.
BAYET--L’Art Byzantin. 8vo. Paris.
BAZANCOURT--Histoire de la Sicile sous la Domination des
Normands. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1846.
BEAUDRIMONT--Histoire des Basques. 8vo. Paris, 1867.
BÉDARRIDE--Les Juifs en France, Italie, et Espagne. 8vo. Paris,
1861.
BELIN--Du Régime des Fiefs Militaires dans l’Islamisme. 8vo.
Paris, 1870.
BÉNÉTRIX--Les Femmes Troubadours. 8vo. Paris, 1890.
BERGER--L’Arabie avant Mahomet. 8vo. Paris, 1883.
BERTHELOT--Les Origines de l’Alchimie. 8vo. Paris, 1885.
BERTHÉRAND--Médecine et Hygiène des Arabes. 8vo. Paris.
BIOT--L’Astronomie Indienne et Chinoise. 8vo. Paris, 1862.
BOELL--Histoire de la Corse. 8vo. Marseille, 1878.
BOISGELIN--Malte Ancienne et Moderne. 3 vols. 8vo. 1809.
BORDIER--L’Art Byzantin. 4to. Paris, 1885.
BOUCHER--Deux Poëtes Anté-Islamiques. 8vo. Paris, 1867.
BOURGOIN--Les Arts Arabes. 4to. Paris.
BOUTHARIC--Traité des Droits Seigneureaux. 4to. Toulouse, 1751.
BRUCE-WHYTE--Histoire des Langues Romanes. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris,
1841.
BURNOUF--Essai sur Le Veda. 8vo. Paris, 1863.
CADOZ--Civilité Musulmane. 12mo. Alger, 1889.
CAPEFIGUE--Histoire de France au Moyen Age. 4 vols. 8vo.
Bruxelles, 1843.
CAPEFIGUE--Histoire Philosophique des Juifs. 8vo. Bruxelles,
1839.
CARDONNE--Histoire de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne. 3 vols. 12mo.
Paris, 1765.
CARDONNE--Mélange de la Littérature Orientale. 12mo. Paris, 1786.
CATEL--Histoire de Languedoc. Folio. Tolose, 1633.
CATEL--Histoire des Comtes de Tolose. Folio. Tolose, 1623.
CAUSSIN DE PERCEVAL--Essai sur l’Histoire des Arabes avant
l’Islamisme. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1847.
CHAPO ET BELZUNCE--Histoire des Basques. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris,
1847.
CHAUMEIL DE STELLA--Essai sur l’Histoire de Portugal. 8vo.
Bruxelles.
CHÉNIER--Recherches Historiques sur les Maures. 3 vols. 8vo.
Paris, 1787.
CHERRIER--Histoire de la Lutte des Papes. 4 vols. 8vo. Paris,
1841.
CHIARINI--Le Talmud de Babylone. 8vo. Leipzig. 1831.
CHOISEUL-DALLECOURT--De l’Influence des Croisades. 8vo. Paris,
1809.
CHRISTIANOWITSCH--Esquisse Historique de la Musique Arabe. 4to.
CIRCOURT--Histoire des Mores Mudejares et des Morisques. 3 vols.
8vo. Paris, 1846.
CLOT-BEY--Aperçu Général sur l’Égypte. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1840.
COUPRY--Traité de la Versification Arabe. 8vo. Leipzig, 1875.
COYPEL--Le Judaïsme. 8vo. Paris, 1877.
DAREMBERG--Histoire des Sciences Médicales. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris,
1870.
DAUMAS--La Vie Arabe. 8vo. Paris.
DAVILLIER--Histoire des Faïences Hispano-Moresques. 8vo. Paris,
1861.
DAVILLIER--Les Arts Décoratifs en Espagne. 8vo. Paris, 1879.
DAVILLIER--Notice sur les Cuirs de Cordoue. 8vo. Paris, 1878.
DAVILLIER--Origines de la Porcelaine en Europe. 4to. Paris, 1882.
DELAMBRE--Histoire de l’Astronomie Ancienne. 2 vols. 4to. Paris,
1817.
DELAPORTE--Vie de Mahomet. 8vo. Paris, 1874.
DE L’ISLE--Des Talismans. 12mo. Paris, 1636.
DENIS--Chroniques et Traditions Provençales. 8vo. Toulon, 1831.
DE PARCTELAINE--Histoire de la Guerre contre les Albigeois. 8vo.
Paris, 1833.
DEPPING--Histoire du Commerce entre le Levant et l’Europe. 2
vols. 8vo. 1830.
DEPPING--Les Juifs dans le Moyen Age. 8vo. Paris, 1834.
DE ROCHAT--Les Parias de France et d’Espagne. 8vo. Paris, 1876.
DE SACY--Chrestomatie Arabe. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1826.
DE SACY--Mémoires sur l’Histoire des Arabes avant Mahomet. 4to.
Paris.
DE SAULCY--Histoire de l’Art Judaïque. 8vo. Paris, 1858.
DESVERGERS--Arabie. 8vo. Paris, 1847.
D’HERBELOT--Bibliothèque Orientale. 6 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1773.
DINAUX--Les Trouvères Artésiens. 8vo. Paris, 1843.
DOUAIS--Les Albigeois. 8vo. Paris, 1879.
DOZY--Essai sur l’Histoire de l’Islamisme. 8vo. Leyde, 1879.
DOZY--Glossaire des Mots Espagnols et Portugais dérivés de
l’Arabe. 8vo. Leyde, 1869.
DOZY--Histoire des Musulmans d’Espagne. 4 vols. 8vo. Leyde, 1861.
DOZY--Le Cid. 8vo. Leyde, 1860.
DOZY--Notices sur Quelques Manuscrits. 8vo. Leyde, 1847.
DOZY--Recherches sur l’Histoire et la Littérature de l’Espagne
pendant le Moyen Age. 2 vols. 8vo. Leyde, 1860.
DUBOIS--Histoire de l’Horlogerie. 4to. Paris, 1849.
DUGAT--Histoire des Philosophes Musulmans. 8vo. Paris, 1878.
DUGAT--Traité de Médecine d’Abou Djafar. 8vo. Paris, 1853.
DUPOUY--Le Moyen Age Médical. 12mo. Paris, 1880.
EGGER--L’Hellenisme en France. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1869.
EL-BEKRI--Description de l’Afrique Septentrionale. 8vo. Paris,
1859.
FABRE--Le Troubadour. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1843.
FAURIEL--Histoire de la Gaule Méridionale. 4 vols. 8vo. Paris,
1836.
FAURIEL--Histoire de la Poësie Provençale. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris,
1846.
FERRERAS--Histoire Générale d’Espagne. 10 vols. 4to. Paris, 1744.
FÉTIS--Histoire de la Musique. 5 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1869.
FIGUIER--L’Alchimie et les Alchimistes. 12mo. Paris, 1856.
FLEURY--Histoire Ecclésiastique. 6 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1844.
FLÜCKIGER et HANBURY--Histoire des Drogues Végétales. 2 vols.
8vo. Paris, 1878.
FOURIEL--Conquête de l’Afrique par les Arabes. 2 vols. 4to. 1875.
FOURNEL--Les Berbères. 2 vols. 4to. Paris, 1875.
FRANCK--La Kabbale. 8vo. Paris, 1843.
FRÉGUIER--Les Juifs Algériens. 8vo. Paris, 1865.
FRESNEL--Lettre sur l’Histoire des Arabes avant l’Islamisme.
8vo. Paris, 1836.
GAGNIER--La Vie de Mahomet. 12mo. Amsterdam, 1732.
GARCIN DE TASSY--Mémoire sur les Noms Propres et les Titres
Musulmans. 8vo. Paris, 1878.
GARNIER--Célibat et les Célibataires. 12mo. Paris, 1889.
GARNIER--Histoire de la Verrerie. 8vo. Tours, 1886.
GASTINEAU--Les Femmes et les Mœurs d’Algérie. 12mo. Paris.
GAUFRIDI--Histoire de Provence. 2 vols. Folio. Aix, 1694.
GAUTTIER D’ARC--Histoire des Conquêtes des Normands en Italie,
en Sicile, et en Grèce. 8vo. Paris, 1830.
GHAZZALI--Le Préservatif de l’Erreur. 8vo. Paris, 1878.
GIRAULT DE PRANGEY--Essai sur l’Architecture des Arabes et des
Maures. 4to. Paris, 1842.
GOLDZIEHER--Le Culte des Ancêtres chez les Arabes. 8vo. Paris,
1885.
GRAETZ--Les Juifs d’Espagne. 8vo. Paris, 1872.
GRANGERET DE LAGRANGE--Les Arabes en Espagne. 8vo. Paris, 1824.
GUARDIA--La Médecine à travers les Siècles. 8vo. Paris, 1865.
GUIZOT--Collection des Mémoires relatifs à l’Histoire de la
France. 31 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1824.
GUIZOT--Histoire de la Civilisation en France. 4 vols. 8vo.
Paris, 1846.
GUYARD--La Civilisation Musulmane. 12mo. Paris, 1884.
GUYARD--Théorie de la Métrique Arabe. 8vo. Paris.
---- Histoire des Papes. 10 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1844.
HOEFER--Histoire de la Chimie. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris.
HOEFER--Histoire des Mathématiques. 12mo. Paris, 1874.
HOVELACQUE--L’Avesta. 8vo. Paris, 1880.
HUILLARD-BRÉHOLLES--Histoire Diplomatique de Frédéric II. 4to.
Paris, 1859.
HUILLARD-BRÉHOLLES--La Vie de Pierre de la Vigne. 8vo. Paris,
1865.
IBN-AL-AWAM--Le Livre de l’Agriculture. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1866.
IBN-EL-BEITHAR--Traité des Simples. 3 vols. 4to. Paris, 1877.
IBN-HAUKAL--Description de Palerme au X Siècle. 8vo. Paris, 1845.
IBN-KHALDUN--Histoire des Berbères. 4 vols. 8vo. Alger, 1856.
JACOB--Curiosités de l’Histoire du Moyen Age. 12mo. Paris, 1859.
JACOBI--Histoire de la Corse. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1833.
JAGNAUX--Histoire de la Chimie. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1891.
JAUBERT DE PASSA--Voyage en Espagne. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1891.
JOMARD--Études sur l’Arabie. 8vo. Paris, 1839.
LA BEAUME--Le Coran Analysé. 8vo. Paris, 1878.
LABESSADE--Le Droit du Seigneur. 8vo. Paris, 1878.
LACROIX--Mœurs et Usages au Moyen Age. 8vo. Paris, 1878.
LACROIX--Sciences et Lettres au Moyen Age. Folio. Paris, 1877.
LANGLÉ--Historial du Jongleur. 8vo. Paris, 1829.
LA PRIMAUDAIE--Les Arabes en Sicile et en Italie. 8vo. Paris,
1867.
LA ROQUE--Voyage dans l’Arabie Heureuse. 12mo. Paris, 1725.
LEBEAU--Histoire du Bas Empire. 13 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1820.
LE BON--La Civilisation des Arabes. 8vo. Paris, 1884.
LEBRUN--Histoire Secrète des Couvents. 12mo. Bruxelles.
LECLERC--Abul Casis. 8vo. Paris, 1874.
LECLERC--Histoire de la Médecine Arabe. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1876.
LENIENT--La Satire en France au Moyen Age. 8vo. Paris, 1877.
LENORMANT--La Grande Grèce. 12mo. Paris, 1881.
LENORMANT--La Divination. 8vo. Paris, 1875.
LENORMANT--Les Premières Civilisations. 8vo. Paris, 1874.
LENTHÉRIC--La Grèce et l’Orient en Provence. 12mo. Paris, 1878.
LETOURNEAUX--La Kabylie et les Coutumes Kabyles. 3 vols. 8vo.
Paris, 1872.
LINGUET--Essai Philosophique sur le Monachisme. 12mo. Paris,
1777.
LLORENTE--Histoire de l’Inquisition d’Espagne. 4 vols. 8vo.
Paris, 1817.
LOUIS-LANDE--Basques et Navarrais. 8vo. Paris, 1878.
LUCAS--Documents sur le Cid. 8vo. Paris, 1860.
MAGEN--Les Prêtres et les Moines à travers les Ages. 8vo. Paris,
1857.
MAKRIZI--Histoire des Sultans Mamlouks. 2 vols. 4to. Paris, 1837.
MAKRIZI--Traité des Monnaies Musulmanes. 8vo. Paris.
MANDEL--Histoire de la Langue Romane. 8vo. Paris, 1840.
MARCHAND--Moines et Nonnes. 12mo. Paris, 1881.
MARMOL--L’Afrique. 3 vols. 4to. Paris, 1667.
MARTIN--Les Signes Numéraux chez les Peuples de l’Antiquité et
du Moyen Age. 4to. Rome, 1864.
MARTONNE--La Piété du Moyen Age. 8vo. Paris, 1855.
MAS LATRIE--Histoire de l’Isle de Chypre. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris,
1855.
MAS LATRIE--Traités de Paix des Arabes du Moyen Age. Folio.
Paris, 1866.
MAURY--Croyances et Légendes de l’Antiquité. 8vo. Paris, 1863.
MAURY--Essai sur les Légendes Pieuses du Moyen Age. 8vo. Paris,
1843.
MAURY--Histoire des Religions de la Grèce Antique. 3 vols. 8vo.
Paris, 1857.
MAURY--La Magie et l’Astrologie. 12mo. Paris, 1860.
MÉNANT--Zoroastre. 8vo. Paris, 1857.
MÉRAY--La Vie au Temps des Cours d’Amour. 8vo. Paris, 1876.
MÉRAY--La Vie au Temps des Trouvères. 8vo. Paris.
MÉRIMÉE--Histoire de Don Pedro I. 12mo. Paris, 1865.
MICHAUD--Histoire des Croisades. 4 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1867.
MICHELET--Histoire de France. 19 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1870.
MICHEL--Histoire des Races Maudites de la France et de
l’Espagne. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1847.
MICHEL--Le Pays Basque. 8vo. Paris, 1859.
MIÈGE--Histoire de Malte. 2 vols. 8vo. Bruxelles, 1841.
MILLOT---Histoire Littéraire des Troubadours. 3 vols. 12mo.
Paris, 1774.
MIMAUT--Histoire de Sardaigne. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1825.
MOHAMMED-IBN-DJOBAIR--Voyage en Sicile. 8vo. Paris, 1846.
MOLINE DE SAINT-YON--Histoire des Comtes de Toulouse. 4 vols.
8vo. Paris.
MONTUCLA--Histoire des Mathématiques. 2 vols. 4to. Paris, 1758.
MORLILLARO--Légendes Historiques Siciliennes. 8vo. Palermo, 1890.
NIEBUHR--Description de l’Arabie. 4to. Paris, 1779.
OELSNER--Des Effets de la Religion de Mohammed. 8vo. Paris, 1810.
PARISET--Histoire de la Soie. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1862.
PERRON--Femmes Arabes. 8vo. Paris, 1858.
PERROT--Histoire des Antiquités de la Ville de Nismes. 8vo.
Nismes, 1842.
PEYRAT--Histoire des Albigeois. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1870.
PLEYTE--La Religion des pré-Israélites. 8vo. Utrecht, 1862.
POIRET--Voyage en Barbarie. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1789.
PRISSE D’AVESNES--La Décoration Arabe. Folio. Paris, 1885.
QUERRY--Le Droit Musulman. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1871.
RAMÉE--Histoire Générale de l’Architecture. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris,
1859.
REINAUD--Extraits des Historiens Arabes relatifs aux Croisades.
8vo. Paris, 1829.
REINAUD--L’Art Militaire chez les Arabes au Moyen Age. 8vo.
Paris, 1848.
REINAUD--Les Invasions des Sarrasins en France. 8vo. Paris.
REINAUD--Monumens Arabes, Persans, et Turcs. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris,
1828.
REINAUD--Notice sur Mahomet. 8vo. Paris, 1860.
REINAUD--Relation des Voyages dans l’Inde. 2 vols. 18mo. Paris,
1845.
RENAN--Averroes et l’Averroïsme. 8vo. Paris, 1852.
RENAULDON--Dictionnaire des Fiefs et des Droits Seigneureaux.
4to. Paris, 1765.
RENOUARD--Histoire de la Médecine. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1846.
ROMEY--Histoire d’Espagne. 9 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1839.
RONNA--Les Irrigations. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1888.
ROQUAIRE--La Papauté au Moyen Age. 8vo. Paris, 1881.
ROSSEUW SAINT-HILAIRE--Histoire d’Espagne. 14 vols. 8vo. Paris,
1859.
SABATIER--Notice sur Gerbert. 8vo. Paris, 1850.
SAINTE-PELAIE--Histoire Littéraire des Troubadours. 3 vols.
12mo. Paris, 1774.
SCHMOLDERS--Essai sur les Écoles Philosophiques chez les Arabes.
8vo. Paris, 1842.
SCHOEBEL--Le Bouddhisme et ses Origines. 8vo. Paris, 1874.
SCHOLL--L’Islam et son Fondateur. 8vo. Neuchatel, 1844.
SÉDILLOT--Histoire Générale des Arabes. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1877.
SÉDILLOT--Matériaux pour servir à l’Histoire Complète des
Sciences Mathématiques chez les Orientaux. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris,
1845.
SÉDILLOT--Mémoire sur les Systèmes Géographiques des Arabes.
8vo. Paris, 1842.
SÉDILLOT--Prolégomènes des Tables Astronomiques d’Oloug Beg.
8vo. Paris, 1853.
SÉDILLOT--Traité des Instruments Astronomiques des Arabes. 4to.
Paris, 1833.
SISMONDI--Histoire de la Littérature du Midi de Europe. 4 vols.
8vo. Paris, 1829.
SISMONDI--Républiques Italiennes du Moyen Age. 10 vols. 8vo.
Paris, 1840.
SOLVET--Description du Pays de Magreb. 8vo. Alger, 1839.
TORRES--Histoire des Chérifs. 4to. Paris, 1667.
VACHEROT--Histoire Critique de l’École d’Alexandrie. 3 vols.
8vo. Paris, 1846.
VERTOT--Histoire des Chevaliers Hospitaliers. 5 vols. 8vo.
Amsterdam, 1732.
VIARDOT--Histoire des Arabes et des Mores d’Espagne. 2 vols.
8vo. Paris, 1857.
VIARDOT--Scènes des Mœurs Arabes. 8vo. Paris, 1834.
VILLEMAIN--Histoire de Gregoire VII. 8vo. Paris, 1874.
VILLEMAIN--Tableau de la Littérature au Moyen Age. 8vo. Paris,
1878.
VINCENT--Études sur la Loi Musulmane--Législation Criminelle.
8vo. Paris, 1842.
WOEPCKE--L’Algèbre d’Omar Al-Khayymi. 8vo. Paris, 1857.
WOEPCKE--Mémoire sur la Propagation des Chiffres Indiens. 8vo.
Paris, 1863.
WOEPCKE--Recherches sur l’Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques
chez les Orientaux. 8vo. Paris, 1860.
WOEPCKE--Sur l’Introduction de l’Arithmétique en Occident. 4to.
Paris, 1859.
ZAMAKHSCHARI--Les Colliers d’Or. 8vo. Paris, 1876.
ZELLER--Entretiens sur l’Histoire du Moyen Age. 12mo. Paris,
1865.
ZELLER--Histoire d’Allemagne. 7 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1872.
SPANISH.
ABARCA--Anales de Aragon. 2 vols. Folio. Salamanca, 1684.
ALDRETE--Varias Antigüedades de España. 4to. Amberes, 1614.
ALMAGRO--Inscripciones Arabes de Granada. 4to. Granada, 1877.
ALONSO EL SABIO--Las Siete Partidas. 3 vols. 4to. Madrid, 1807.
ARAQUISTAN--Tradiciones Vasco-Cántabras. 8vo. Tolosa, 1866.
ARGOTE DE MOLINA--Nobleza de Andalucia. Folio. Sevilla, 1581.
ARGOTE--Nuevos Paseos por Granada. 2 vols. 12mo. Granada, 1820.
BAEZA--Ultimos Sucesos del Reino de Granada. 8vo. Madrid, 1868.
BALAGUER--Historia de los Trovadores. 6 vols. 8vo. Madrid, 1878.
BALAGUER--Los Reyes Catolicos. 2 vols. 8vo. Madrid, 1894.
BERNALDEZ--Historia de los Reyes Catolicos. 2 vols. 4to.
Sevilla, 1870.
BLEDA--Coronica de los Moros de España. Folio. Valencia, 1618.
BOIX--Xativa. 8vo. 1857.
CANAS--De la Agricultura Española. 16mo. Valladolid, 1868.
CARO--Antigüedades de Sevilla. Folio. Sevilla, 1634.
CASCALES--Discursos Historicos sobre Murcia. Folio. Murcia, 1775.
CAVEDA--Ensayo Historico sobre los diversos generos de
Architectura en España. 8vo. Madrid, 1848.
CAVEDA--Cronica de Don Alvaro de Luna. Folio. Madrid, 1784.
CEBRIAN--Historia de los Arabes en Murcia. 8vo. Palma, 1845.
CODERA Y ZAIDIN--Tratado de Numismatica Arabigo-Española. 4to.
Madrid, 1879.
COLMENARES--Historia de Segovia. Folio. Madrid, 1640.
CONDE--Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabes en España. 2
vols. 4to. Madrid, 1820.
CONTRERAS--Monumentos Arabes. 4to. Madrid, 1878.
---- Cronicas de los Reyes de Castilla. 3 vols. 8vo. Madrid,
1875.
DAMETO--Historia del Reyno Balearico. 3 vols. 4to. Palma, 1840.
DANVILA Y COLLADO--La Expulsion de los Moriscos. 8vo. Madrid,
1889.
DE LA PENA--Anales de Cataluña. 3 vols. Folio. Barcelona, 1709.
DE LOS RIOS--El Arte Latino-Byzantino. 4to. Madrid, 1861.
DE LOS RIOS--Historia de los Judios de España. 3 vols. 8vo.
Madrid, 1876.
DE LOS RIOS--Inscripciones Arabes de Cordoba y Sevilla. 8vo.
Madrid, 1879.
DE LOS RIOS--Sevilla Pintoresca. 4to. Sevilla, 1844.
DE LOS RIOS--Toledo Pintoresca. 4to. Madrid, 1845.
DEL VALLE--Anales de la Inquisicion. 8vo. Madrid, 1868.
DE SCHACK--Poesía y Arte de los Arabes en España y Sicilia. 3
vols. 12mo. Madrid, 1872.
DIAGO--Historia de los Condes de Barcelona. Folio. Barcelona,
1603.
DURO--Memorias de Zamora. 4 vols. 8vo. Madrid, 1883.
ECHEVARRIA--Paseos por Granada. 2 vols. 8vo. Granada, 1814.
ESCOLANO--Historia de Valencia. 2 vols. Folio. Valencia, 1610.
FLECHIER--Historia del Cardenal Ximenes. 8vo. Lyons, 1712.
FLOREZ--España Sagrada. 51 vols. 4to. Madrid, 1754.
GALIANO--Historia de España. 4 vols. 8vo. Madrid, 1844.
GARIBAY--Compendio Historial de las Chronicas. 2 vols. Folio.
Barcelona, 1628.
GOMEZ-MIEDES--Historia del Rey Don Jayme I. de Aragon. Folio.
Valencia, 1584.
GONGORA--Historia de Navarra. 4to. Pamplona, 1628.
GUADALAJARA Y XAVIERR--Memorable Expulsion de los Moriscos de
España. 4to. Pamplona, 1613.
HURTADO DE MENDOZA--Guerra de Granada contra los Moriscos. 4to.
1776.
IBN-ALJATHIB--Descripcion del Reino de Granada. 8vo. Madrid,
1860.
JANER--Condicion Social de los Moriscos de España. 8vo. Madrid,
1857.
JIMENA--Anales de Jaen y Baeza. 4to. Matriti, 1654.
LAFUENTE-ALCANTARA--El Libro del Viajero en Granada. 16mo.
Granada, 1843.
LAFUENTE-ALCANTARA--Historia de Granada. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris,
1852.
LAFUENTE-ALCANTARA--Inscripciones Arabes de Granada. 8vo.
Madrid, 1859.
LAFUENTE--Historia General de España. 6 vols. 4to. Barcelona,
1882.
LOZANO--Los Reyes Nuevos de Toledo. 4to. Valencia, 1698.
MADRAZO--Cordova. 4to. Madrid, 1855.
MADRAZO--Sevilla y Cadiz. 4to. Madrid, 1856.
MARIANA--Historia General de España. 2 vols. Folio. Madrid, 1650.
MARMOL-CARVAJAL--Historia de la Rebelion y Castigo de los
Moriscos. 4to. Madrid, 1797.
MARTINEZ DE LA ROSA--Obras. 8vo. Paris, 1844.
MASDEU--Historia Critica de España. 20 vols. 4to. Madrid, 1787.
---- Memorial Histórico Español. 21 vols. 4to. Madrid, 1851–1889.
---- Memorias de la Real Academia de Historia. 11 vols. 4to.
Madrid, 1796–1888.
MENANDEZ-VALDEZ--La Monarchia Asturiana. 4to. Madrid.
MESA-GINETE--Historia de Jerez de la Frontera. 2 vols. 4to.
Jerez, 1888.
MILA Y FONTENALS--De los Trovadores en España. 8vo. Barcelona,
1861.
MOLINO--Rodrigo el Campeador. 4to. Madrid, 1857.
MONDEJAR--Memorias del Rei Alonso el Sabio. Folio. Madrid, 1777.
MORALES--Coronica General de España. 15 vols. 4to. Madrid, 1791.
MORETI--Historia de Ronda. 4to. Ronda, 1867.
MUÑOZ Y GAVIRIA--Historia del Alzamiento de los Moriscos. 12mo.
Madrid, 1861.
NEBRIXA--Chronica de los Reyes Catholicos. Folio. Valladolid,
1565.
NUÑEZ DE CASTRO--Coronica de los Reyes de Castilla. Folio.
Madrid, 1665.
OLIVARRIA Y HUARTRE--Tradiciones de Toledo. 12mo. Madrid, 1880.
OLIVER-HURTADO--Granada y sus Monumentos Arabes. 8vo. Malaga,
1875.
ORBANEJA--Almeria Ilustrada. Folio. Almeria, 1699.
PEDRAZA--Historia Eclesiastica de Granada. Folio. Granada, 1638.
PI Y MARGALL--Granada. 4to. Madrid, 1850.
RADA Y DELGADO--Museo Español de Antigüedades. 9 vols. Folio.
Madrid.
RISCO--La Castilla. 4to. Madrid, 1792.
RIVERA--Historia de Ronda. 16mo. Ronda, 1873.
ROBLES--Malaga Musulmana. 4to. Malaga, 1880.
ROJAS--Historia de Toledo. 2 vols. Folio. Madrid, 1659.
SAAVEDRA--Estudio sobre la Invasion de los Arabes en España.
8vo. Madrid, 1892.
SALAZAR DE MENDOZA--Cronica de la Casa de los Ponces de Leon.
4to. 1620.
SALAZAR DE MENDOZA--Cronica del Gran Cardenal de España. Folio.
Toledo, 1725.
SANDOVAL--Chronica de Don Alonso VII. Folio. Madrid, 1600.
SANDOVAL--Historia de los Reyes de Castilla y Leon. Folio.
Pamplona, 1634.
SIMONET--Leyendas Historicas Arabes. 8vo. Madrid, 1858.
TAPIA--Historia de la Civilizacion Española. 4 vols. 12mo.
Madrid, 1840.
TORRES--Historia de las Ordenes Militares. 4to. Madrid. 1629.
VALDES--Monarchia Asturiana. 4to. Madrid.
VELASCO--Los Euskaros. 8vo. Barcelona, 1879.
VIEGAS--Principios del Reyno de Portugal. 4to. Barcelona.
ZUÑIGA--Anales de Sevilla. 5 vols. 4to. Madrid, 1796.
ZURITA--Anales de Aragon. 7 vols. Folio. Zaragoza, 1610.
PORTUGUESE.
BENAVIDES--Rainhas de Portugal. 2 vols. 8vo. Lisboa, 1878.
BRAGA--Historia da Poesia Popular Portuguesa. 12mo. Porto, 1867.
BRITO E BRANDAO--Monarchia Lusitana. 8 vols. Folio. Lisboa,
1690.
---- Cancioneirinho de Trovas Antigas. 12mo. Vienna, 1857.
DA SERRA--Colecçao de Livros Ineditos de Historia Portuguesa. 5
vols. Folio. Lisboa, 1790.
DE SOUSA--Vestigios de la Lingua Arabica em Portugal. 8vo.
Lisboa, 1789.
ENNES--Historia de Portugal. 2 vols. 8vo. Lisboa, 1876.
HERCULANO--Historia da Inquisiçao em Portugal. 3 vols. 12mo.
1874.
HERCULANO--Historia de Portugal. 2 vols. 8vo. Lisboa, 1880.
NUNEZ DO LIAO--Chronicas dos Reis de Portugal. 4 vols. Lisboa,
1774.
ITALIAN.
ABBATE--Italia nel Medio Evo. 8vo. Alba, 1892.
AIROLDI--Codice Diplomatico di Sicilia. 6 vols. 4to. Palermo,
1789.
AMARI--Biblioteca Arabo-Sicula. 3 vols. 8vo. Torino, 1880.
AMARI--I Diplomi Arabi. Folio. Firenze, 1863.
AMARI--Ricordi Arabici. 8vo. Genova, 1873.
AMARI--Solwan el Mota. 12mo. Firenze, 1851.
AMARI--Storia dei Mussulmani di Sicilia. 3 vols. 8vo. Firenze,
1854.
AMARI--Un Periode delle Istoriæ Siciliane. 8vo. Panormo, 1842.
BARDI--Storia della Letteratura Araba sotto il Califato. 2 vols.
8vo. Firenze, 1846.
BENNICI--L’Ultimo dei Trovatori in Sicilia. 12mo. Palermo, 1874.
BERTALOTTI--Gli Arabi in Italia. 8vo. Torino, 1838.
BRUNO--Opere. 2 vols. 8vo. Lipsiæ, 1830.
CAVEDONI--Ricerche sui Trovatori. Folio. Modena, 1844.
CORBETTA--Sardegna e Corsica. 8vo. Milano, 1877.
CUSA--I Diplomi Greci ed Arabi. Folio. Palermo, 1868.
DE RENZI--Collectio Salernitana. 5 vols. 8vo. Napoli, 1852.
FERRARIO--Storia degli Antichi Romanzi di Cavalleria. 4 vols.
8vo. Milano, 1828.
GALILEO--Opere. 16 vols. 8vo. Firenze, 1853.
GIANNONE--Istoria del Regno di Napoli. 8 vols. 8vo. 1882.
GUICCIARDINI--Storia d’ Italia. 6 vols. 8vo. Parigi, 1837.
MANNO--Storia di Sardegna. 8vo. Firenze, 1858.
MARIGNY--Storia degli Arabi. 4 vols. 12mo. Venezia, 1753.
MARTINI--Storia delle Invasioni degli Arabi in Sardegna. 8vo.
Cagliari, 1861.
MORSO--Descrizione di Palermo Antico. 8vo. Palermo, 1827.
MURATORI--Annali d’ Italia. 17 vols. 8vo. Milano, 1820.
NAVAGIERO--Il Viaggio Fatto in Spagna et in Francia. 12mo.
Venegia, 1563.
NAZARI--Della Transmutatione Metallica. 4to. Brescia, 1599.
PITRE--Usi e Costumi del Popolo Siciliano. 4 vols. 8vo. Palermo,
1889.
TETI--Il Regime Feudale. 8vo. Napoli, 1890.
TIRABOSCHI--Storia della Letteratura Italiana. 27 vols. 8vo.
Venezia, 1824.
VETRI--Dei Primordi della Invasione Araba. 8vo. 1882.
GERMAN.
AHLWARDT--Die Alte Arabische Gedichte. 8vo. Greifswald, 1872.
AHLWARDT--Poësie der Araber. 4to. Gotha, 1856.
APPEL--Provenzalische Inedita. 8vo. Leipzig, 1890.
ASCHBACH--Geschichte der Ommaijden in Spanien. 2 vols. 8vo.
Wien, 1860.
ASCHBACH--Geschichte der Westgothen. 8vo. Franc. am Main, 1827.
ASCHBACH--Geschichte Spaniens und Portugals. 2 vols. 8vo. Franc.
am Main, 1833.
ASSMANN--Geschichte des Mittelalters. 4 vols. 8vo. Braunschweig,
1857.
BARTSCH--Grundniss zur Geschichte der Provenzalische Litteratur.
8vo. Elberfeld, 1872.
BAUDISSIN--Studien zur Semitischen Religionsgeschichte. 8vo.
Leipzig, 1876.
BEBEL--Die Mohammedanische-Arabische Kultur Periode. 8vo.
Stuttgart, 1889.
BECKER--Chemische Anekdoten. 8vo. Leipzig, 1788.
BERGEL--Die Medizin der Talmudisten. 8vo. Leipzig, 1885.
BIRCH-HIRSCHFELD--Ueber die den Provenzalischen Troubadours
Epischen Stoffe. 8vo. Leipzig, 1878.
BLAU--Arabien im VI. Jahrhundert. 8vo.
BÖTTICHER--Geschichte der Carthager. 8vo. Berlin, 1827.
BRINCKMAIER--Die Provenzalischen Troubadours. 8vo. Göttingen,
1882.
CHWOLSOHN--Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus. 2 vols. 8vo. St.
Petersburg, 1856.
DIERCKS--Die Araber im Mittelalter. 8vo. Leipzig, 1882.
DIETERICI--Die Philosophie der Araber im X. Jahrhundert. 8 vols.
8vo. Leipzig, 1876.
DIEZ--Die Poësie der Troubadours. 8vo. Zwickau, 1826.
DIEZ--Leben und Werke der Troubadours. 8vo. Leipzig, 1882.
DÖLLINGER--Von der Papstfabeln des Mittelalters. 8vo. Stuttgart,
1890.
DUKES--Moses ben Ezra aus Granada. 8vo. Altona, 1839.
EBERT--Allgemeine Geschichte der Litteratur des Mittelalters. 3
vols. 8vo. Leipzig, 1887.
EWALD--Geschichte des Volkes Israel. 7 vols. 8vo. Göttingen,
1843.
FISCHBACH--Geschichte der Textelkunst. 8vo. Hanau, 1883.
FLÜGEL--Die Schulen von Bosra und Kufa. 8vo. Leipzig, 1862.
FLÜGEL--Geschichte der Araber. 8vo. Leipzig, 1867.
FREYTAG--Darstellung der Arabischen Verskunst. 8vo. Bonn, 1830.
FUNK--Kaiser Friedrich II. 8vo. Wien, 1817.
GEIGER--Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthum aufgenommen. 8vo.
Bonn, 1883.
GOLDHANN--Wanderungen in Sicilien. 8vo. Leipzig, 1855.
GOLDZIEHER--Der Mythos bei den Hebraern. 8vo. Leipzig, 1876.
GOLDZIEHER--Die Zahiriten. 8vo. Halle, 1884.
GOLDZIEHER--Mohammedanische Studien. 2 vols. 8vo. Halle, 1889.
GOSCHE--Die Alhambra. 16mo. Berlin, 1854.
GRAU--Semiten und Indogermanen. 8vo. Stuttgart, 1867.
GUDEMANN--Das Judische Unterrechtswesen wahrend der
Spanische-Arabische Periode. 8vo. Wien, 1873.
HAMMER-PURGSTALL--Gemäldesaal der grossen Mohammedanische
Herrscher. 6 vols. 8vo. Leipzig, 1873.
HAMMER-PURGSTALL--Literaturgeschichte der Araber. 7 vols. 4to.
Wien, 1855.
HANKEL--Geschichte der Mathematik. 8vo. Leipzig, 1874.
HAUSLEUTNER--Geschichte der Araber in Sicilien. 4 vols. 8vo.
Königsberg, 1791.
HIRSCHFELD--Beiträge zur Erklarung des Koran. 8vo. Leipzig, 1886.
HÖFLER--Kaiser Friedrich II. 8vo. Munich, 1844.
IBN-ISHAK--Das Leben Mohammeds. 8vo. Stuttgart, 1864.
JACOBS--Welche Handsartikel bezogen die Araber en Mittelalter
aus den Nordische-Baltischen Ländern. 8vo. Berlin, 1891.
JOST--Geschichte des Judenthums. 8vo. Leipzig, 1857.
KAEMPF--Poësie Andalusischen Dichter. 8vo. Prag, 1858.
KAPP--Die Alchemie. 2 vols. 8vo. Heidelburg, 1886.
KAYSERLING--Die Judischen Frauen. 8vo. Leipzig, 1879.
KAYSERLING--Sephardim. 8vo. Leipzig, 1859.
KESTNER--Der Kreuzzug Friedrichs II. 8vo. Göttingen, 1873.
KIESEWETTER--Die Musik der Araber. 4to. Leipzig, 1842.
KÖPKE--Die Anfänge des Konigthums bei den Gothen. 8vo. Berlin,
1859.
KRAUSE--Die Byzantiner des Mittelalters. 8vo. Halle, 1869.
KREHL--Das Leben des Muhammed. 12mo. Leipzig, 1884.
KREHL--Die Religion der Vorislamischen Araber. 8vo. Leipzig,
1863.
KREMER--Culturgeschichte des Orients. 2 vols. 8vo. Wien, 1875.
KÜGLER--Geschichte der Baukunst. 8vo. Stuttgart, 1859.
LEMBKE--Geschichte von Spanien. 4 vols. 8vo. Hamburg, 1831.
MAHN--Gedichte der Troubadours. 3 vols. 12mo. Berlin, 1856.
MOVERS--Das Phönizische Alterthum. 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1850.
MÜLLER--Die Letzten Zeiten von Granada. 8vo. München, 1863.
MÜLLER--Philosophie und Theologie von Averroes. 4to. München,
1875.
MÜNZ--Ueber die Judische Aerzte im Mittelalter. 8vo. Berlin,
1887.
NESSELMANN--Versuch einer Geschichte des Algebra. 8vo. Berlin,
1842.
NÖLDECKE--Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Poësie der Alten Araber.
8vo. Hannover, 1864.
NÖLDECKE--Das Leben Muhammads. 8vo. Hannover, 1863.
NORDAU--Vom Kreml bis zur Alhambra. 2 vols. 8vo. Leipzig, 1889.
OLDENBERG--Buddha. 8vo. Berlin, 1881.
PARTHEY--Das Alexandrinische Museum. 8vo. Berlin, 1838.
PARTHEY--Wanderungen durch Sicilien. 2 vols. 12mo. Berlin, 1834.
PISCHON--Der Einfluss des Islams. 8vo. Leipzig, 1881.
PRUTZ--Aus Phönizien. 8vo. Leipzig, 1870.
RAUMER--Geschichte der Hohenstaufen. 4 vols. 8vo. Leipzig, 1878.
REBER--Geschichte der Baukunst. 8vo. Leipzig, 1866.
RITTER--Die Arabische Philosophie. 4to. Göttingen, 1844.
RÖHRICHT--Geschichte der Kreuzzuge. 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1874.
SCHAACK--Geschichte der Normannen in Sicilien. 8vo. Stuttgart,
1889.
SCHÄFER--Geschichte von Portugal. 5 vols. 8vo. Hamburg, 1883.
SCHIRRMACHER--Kaiser Friedrich II. 4 vols. 8vo. Göttingen, 1859.
SCHMIDT--Geschichte Aragoniens. 8vo. Leipzig, 1828.
SCHMIEDER--Geschichte der Alchemie. 8vo. Halle, 1832.
SCHULTZ--Das Höflische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesinger. 2 vols.
4to. Leipzig, 1889.
SCHULTZ--Italienische Trobadors. 8vo. Berlin, 1883.
SPANGENBERG--Die Minnehofe des Mittelalters. 8vo. Leipzig, 1821.
SPITTA--Zur Geschichte Abul Hasan Ali Asaris. 8vo. Leipzig, 1876.
SPRENGEL--Geschichte der Arzneikunde. 6 vols. 8vo. Halle, 1821.
SPRENGER--Das Leben und die Lehre des Muhammed. 3 vols. 8vo.
Berlin, 1861.
SPRENGER--Die Alte Geographie Arabiens. 8vo. Bern, 1875.
STIMMING--Bertran de Born. 8vo. Halle, 1879.
STIMMING--Der Troubadour Jaufre Rudel. 8vo. Kiel, 1873.
STÜWE--Die Handelszüge der Araber. 8vo. Berlin, 1836.
SUCHIER--Denkmäler der Provenzalische Litteratur. 8vo. Halle,
1883.
UNGER--Geschichte der Pflanzenwelt. 8vo. Wien, 1852.
VON KREMER--Gebiete des Islams. 8vo. Leipzig, 1873.
VON KREMER--Geschichte der Herrschenden Ideen des Islams. 8vo.
Leipzig, 1868.
VON LEDEBUR--Zeugnisse eines Handels-Verkehrs mit dem Orient.
8vo. Berlin, 1840.
WAHL--Statistik der Araber in Sicilien. 8vo.
WEIL--Die Poetische Literatur der Araber vor Mohammed. 12mo.
Stuttgart, 1837.
WEIL--Einleitung in den Koran. 12mo. Bielefeld, 1844.
WEIL--Geschichte der Chalifen. 3 vols. 8vo. Mannheim, 1846.
WEIL--Geschichte der Islamischen Völker. 8vo. Stuttgart, 1866.
WENIGER--Das Alexandrinische Museum. 8vo. Berlin, 1875.
WILKEN--Geschichte der Kreuzzuge. 8 vols. 8vo. Leipzig, 1830.
WINKELMANN--Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums. 8vo.
Heidelberg, 1882.
WINKELMANN--Kaiser Friedrich II. 2 vols. 8vo. Leipzig, 1889.
WINKLER--Geschichte der Botanik. 8vo. Frankfort, 1854.
WOEPCKE--Ueber Ein Arabisches Astrolabium. 4to. Berlin, 1858.
WÜSTENFELD--Die Academien der Araber. 8vo. Göttingen, 1837.
WÜSTENFELD--Geschichte der Arabischen Aerzte und Naturforscher.
8vo. Göttingen, 1840.
ZERSCHWITZ--Das Kaisertraum des Mittelalters. 8vo. Leipzig, 1877.
ZIMMERMANN--Geschichte der Hohenstaufen. 8vo. Stuttgart, 1865.
DUTCH.
DOZY--De Israelieten te Mekka. 8vo. Haarlem, 1864.
HOUTSMA--De Strijd over het Dogma in den Islam. 8vo. Leiden,
1875.
KEIJZER--De Leerstellingen van de Mohammedaansche Godsdienst.
8vo. Gorinchem, 1854.
KEIJZER--Handboek voor Het Mohammedaansche Regt. 8vo. 's
Gravenhage, 1853.
KERN--Het Buddhisme in Indie. 2 vols. 8vo. Haarlem, 1882.
KIST--De Pausin Johanna. 8vo. Gravenhage, 1845.
KOENEN--Varia, 8vo.
KUENEN--De Baalsdienst onder Israel. 8vo.
KUENEN--De Godsdienst van Israel. 2 vols. 8vo. Haarlem, 1869.
NOMSZ--Mohammed. 12mo. Amstelodami, 1758.
SNOUCK-HURGRONJE--Het Mekkaansche Feest. 8vo. Leiden, 1880.
TIELE--De Godsdienst van Zarathustra. 8vo. Haarlem, 1864.
WEIL--Legenden der Muselmannen. 8vo. Schiedam, 1853.
WEIL--Mohammed de Propheet. 2 vols. 8vo. Amsterdam, 1846.
WUNDERLICH--Geschiedenis der Geneeskunde. 8vo. Tiel, 1861.
DANISH.
FABRICIUS--Forbindelserne mellem Norden og den Spanske Halvo, i
ældre Tider. 8vo. Kjobenhavn, 1882.
MOLBECH--Europa i Middelalderen. 8vo. Kjobenhavn, 1819.
RYDBERG--Middelalderens Magi. 12mo. Kjobenhavn, 1873.
SORENSEN--Araberne og deres Kultur i Middelalderen. 12mo.
Kjobenhavn, 1888.
SWEDISH.
AFZELIUS--Svenska Folket’s Sago-Hafder. 11 vols. 8vo. Stockholm,
1844.
BÖTTIGER--Om den Italienska Kulturens. 8vo. Upsala, 1846.
BRANDEL--Om och ur den arabiska geographen, Idrisi. 8vo. Upsala,
1894.
ENGESTRÖM--Om judarne i Rom under aldere tider. 8vo. Stockholm,
1876.
HELLWALD--Turkiet i vara dagar. 2 vols. 8vo. Stockholm, 1877.
HILDEBRAND--Om det Vatikanska arkivet. 8vo. Stockholm.
JONQUIERE--Osmanika rikets historia. 8vo. Stockholm, 1882.
LINDBERG--Mohammed och Qoranen. 8vo. Göteborg, 1897.
REINACH--Israeliternas historia. 8vo. Stockholm, 1891.
SJÖGREN--Sveriges kulturhistoria. 4to. Stockholm, 1891.
LANGUE D’OC AND LANGUE D’OIL.
BARTSCH--Chrestomatie Provençale. 8vo. Elberfeld, 1868.
BORN, BERTRAND DE--Poësies Complètes. 8vo. Paris.
FAURIEL--Histoire de la Croisade contre les Hérétiques
Albigeois. 4to. Paris, 1837.
MONTAIGLON ET RAYNAUD--Recueil Général des Fabliaux. 6 vols.
8vo. Paris, 1878.
RAYNOUARD--Choix des Poësies des Troubadours. 6 vols. 8vo.
Paris, 1816.
RUTEBŒUF--Œuvres Complètes. 8vo. Paris, 1839.
LIMOUSIN AND CATALAN.
CARBONELL--Chronica de Espanya. Folio. Barcelona, 1546.
DON JAIME DE ARAGON--Libre dels feyts esdevenguts en la vida del
molt alt senyor En Jacme lo Conquerador. Folio. 1557.
MARCH--Les Obres. 4to. Barcelona, 1602.
MUNTANER--Chronica. Folio. Barcelona, 1562.
PUJADES--Coronica universal del Principat de Cathalunya. Folio.
Barcelona, 1609.
ROIG--Libre de Cosells. 12mo. Barcelona, 1561.
TORNICH--Historias e Conquestas dels Excellentissims e Catholics
Reys de Arago. Folio. Barcelona, 1534.
LATIN.
ABD-AL-ALLATIF--Historia Ægypti. 4to. Oxoniæ, 1800.
ABDUL-FEDA--Historia Anteislamica. 4to. Lipsiæ, 1831.
ABUL-PHARAGIUS--Historia Dynastiarum. 4to. Oxoniæ, 1763.
ANSPACH--Historia Califatus Al-Walidi. 8vo. Leyden, 1853.
AVICENNA--Opera. Folio. Venitiis, 1595.
BACON--Opera Inedita. 8vo. London, 1859.
CAPASSO--Historia Diplomatica Regni Siciliæ. 4to. Napoli, 1894.
CARENA--Tractatus de Officio Inquisitionis. Folio. Cremona, 1741.
CASIRI--Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escurialensis. 2 vols.
Folio. Matriti, 1760.
---- Fuero Juzgo. Folio. Madrid, 1815.
GERBERT--Œuvres. 4to. Paris, 1867.
GILDERMEISTER--Scriptorum Arabum de Rebus Indicis. 8vo. Bonnæ,
1838.
HADJI-KHALFA--Lexicon Bibliographicum. 7 vols. 4to. Leipzig,
1835.
HILLE--De Medicis Arabibus Oculariis. 8vo. Lipsiæ.
HUILLARD-BRÉHOLLES--Chronicon Placentinum. 4to. Parisiis, 1856.
LONGINO--Trinium Magicum. 18mo. Francofurti, 1614.
MIDDLEDORFF--Commentatio de Institutis Litterariis in Hispania
quæ Arabes auctores habuerunt. 4to. Göttingen.
MURATORI--Antiquitates Italiæ Medii Ævi. 6 vols. Folio.
Mediolani, 1740.
PAULUS DIACONUS--Historia Longobardorum. 8vo. Hannoveræ, 1878.
POCOCKE--Specimen Historiæ Arabum. 4to. Oxoniæ, 1806.
RASMUSSEN--Additamenta. 4to.
REISKE--Opuscula Medica ex Monimentis Arabum. 8vo. 1776.
REISKE--Sail ol Arem. 4to. Lipsiæ.
RENAULDON--Historia Præcipuorum Arabum Regnorum. 4to. Hauniæ,
1817.
RHAZES--De Variolis et Morbillis. 8vo. Londini, 1766.
RUTGERS--Historia Jemanæ. 4to. Lugd. Batavorum, 1838.
SPRENGEL--Historia Rei Herbariæ. 2 vols. 8vo. Amsteldami, 1807.
---- Tractatus Talmudici Erubhin. 4to. Lipsiæ, 1661.
WENRICH--Rerum ab Arabibis in Italia Insulisque Gestarum
Commentarii. 8vo. Lipsiæ, 1845.
GREEK.
APPIANUS--Historia Romana. 2 vols. 8vo. Lipsiæ, 1881.
HERODOTUS--Historiarum Libri IX. 8vo. Lipsiæ, 1890.
PROCOPIUS--Anekdota. 8vo. Paris, 1856.
STRABO--Geographica. 3 vols. 8vo. Lipsiæ, 1877.
HEBREW.
AKMIN-JOSEPH-BEN--Tah-ul-Nufus (Extracts). 8vo. 1873.
ALFASI--Halakhoth-Rab-Alfas. (Exposition of the Talmud.) 4to.
Oxford, 1875.
MAIMONIDES--Selections from the Yad Hachazakah. 8vo. Cambridge,
1832.
SURENHUSINS--Mishna. 6 vols. Folio. Amstelædami, 1698.
---- Talmud Babli. 13 vols. 4to. Amsterdam, 1654.
ARABIC.
ABD-AL-WAHID--History of the Almohades. 8vo. Leyden, 1881.
ABD-EL-REZZAQ--Revelation des Enigmes. 8vo. Paris, 1874.
ABOULFEDA--Annales Muslemici. 5 vols. 4to. Leipzig, 1794.
ABOULFEDA--Description des Pays de Magreb. 4to. Alger, 1839.
ABULFEDA--Joctanidorum Historia. 4to. Hard. Gel. 1786.
---- Ajbar Machmua. 8vo. Madrid, 1867.
AL-BOKHARI--Canonical Traditions. Folio. Bombay, 1856.
AL-ISPAHANI--The Songs of the Arabs. 10 vols. 4to. Cairo.
AU-MAKKARI--Analectes sur l’Histoire et la Littérature des
Arabes en Espagne. 2 vols. 4to. Leyden, 1855.
AMROLKAIS--Le Divan. 4to. Paris, 1837.
ANTARAH--Romance. 6 vols. 8vo. Beirut, 1883.
DE SOUSA--Documentos Arabicos para a Historia Portuguesa. 4to.
Lisboa, 1790.
DOZY--Scriptorum Rerum Arabum de Abbadidis. 4to. Lugd.
Batavorum, 1846.
EDRISI--Description de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne. 8vo. Leyden,
1866.
ELMACIN--Historia Saracenica. 4to. Lugd. Batavorum.
FARIS-AL-SHIDIAC--Voyages. 8vo. Paris, 1855.
FARUKI--Legal Decisions. 2 vols. Folio. Bulak.
GRANGERET DE LAGRANGE--Anthologie Arabe. 8vo. Paris, 1828.
HAMZAE ISPAHANENSIS--Annalium Liber X. 8vo. Petropoli, 1845.
IBN-ADHARI--Histoire de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne. 2 vols. 8vo.
Leyden, 1848.
IBN-AL-WALID--The Lamp of Kings. 4to. Cairo.
IBN-BADROUN--Commentaire Historique. 8vo. Leyde, 1846.
IBN-BATOUTAH--Voyages. 8vo. Cairo.
IBN-HAJAR--Biographical Dictionary. 4 vols. 8vo. Calcutta, 1853.
IBN-JUNIS--Œuvres. 4to. Paris.
IBN-KHALDUN--Introduction to History. 8vo. Beirut, 1886.
---- Lois des Maures en Espagne. Folio. MS. XII. Century.
MACOUDI--Les Prairies d’Or. 9 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1861.
MOHAMMED--Al Koran. 8vo. Leipzig, 1881.
MUHAMMED-ALFERGANI--Elementa Astronomica. 4to.
SHARASTANI--Book of the Religious and Philosophical Sects. 2
vols. 8vo. 1842.
WRIGHT--Opuscula Arabica. 8vo. Leyden, 1859.
WÜSTENFELD--Das Leben Muhammeds. 3 vols. 8vo. Göttingen, 1859.
WÜSTENFELD--Die Chroniken der Stadt Mecca. 4 vols. 8vo. Leipzig,
1858.
HISTORY OF THE MOORISH EMPIRE IN EUROPE
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
THE ANCIENT ARABIANS
B.C. 2500–A.D. 614
Topography of Arabia--Its History--Influence of Other
Nations--Ancient Civilization---Commerce--Persistence
of Customs and Language--Character of the Bedouin--His
Independence--His Predatory Instincts--Power of Tribal
Connection--War the Normal Condition of Existence in the
Desert--The Virtues and Vices of the Arab--Blood-Revenge
and its Destructive Consequences--Absence of
Caste--Condition of Woman--Marriage--Religion--Astral
Worship--Idolatry--Phallicism--Human Sacrifices--Importance
and Power of the Jews--Christianity in Arabia--Poetry, its
Subjects and Character--The Moallakat---Popularity of the Arab
Poet--His License--Influence of Arabic Civilization and Culture
on Subsequent Ages.
Few countries of the globe present to the eye of the traveller so
desolate, so forbidding an aspect as that vast and arid peninsula
which, embracing an area of more than a million square miles, stretches
away through twenty-four degrees of latitude, from the confines of
the Syrian Desert to the shores of the Indian Ocean. Its surface,
while far from possessing the monotonous character with which popular
fancy is accustomed to invest it, is, for the greater part of its
extent, destitute of those physical advantages which tempt either the
cupidity or the enterprise of man. Its coasts are low and unhealthy.
Its harbors are few and unsafe. Its mineral resources are to this
day unexplored and unknown. Its impenetrable deserts, guarded by
a fierce and martial population, have always set at defiance the
best-matured plans of invasion and conquest. In the principality of
Yemen, appropriately named The Happy, the cultivation of the soil has
flourished from time immemorial, but in almost every other province
the returns of agricultural labor are discouraging and unremunerative.
Illimitable wastes of sand, over which sweeps the deadly blast of
the simoom; mountains, bald, craggy, and volcanic, whose slopes are
destitute of every trace of vegetable life; plains strewn with blocks
of tufa and basalt; valleys dotted here and there with stunted shrubs,
or encrusted with a saline deposit similar to that upon the shores
of the Dead Sea; a soil impregnated with nitre; such are, and have
been from prehistoric times, the physical features of the Arabian
Peninsula. No stream worthy of the name of river, dispensing wealth
and fertility in its winding course to the sea, flows through this
dreary and inhospitable land. Wherever a spring was found, a permanent
settlement arose, and the black tents of the Bedouin gave place to huts
of sun-dried bricks, while the dignity of the sheik, who now aspired to
the title of prince, was satisfied with a dwelling superior to those
of his subjects only in point of size. The oasis, generally suggestive
of shady groves and purling streams, is often, in reality, nothing
more than the dry bed of a mountain torrent, along whose borders a
little withered vegetation furnishes the hardy camel with pasture, and
where a scanty supply of brackish water can, by laborious digging,
be obtained. Overhead glitters a sky of brass, unflecked by a single
cloud, and, morning and evening, the rays of the sun, mellowed and
refracted by the vapors of the earth, clothe every elevation with
scarlet, azure, and violet tints which, blended in exquisite harmony,
rival the splendors of the rainbow; developing, under the effects of
radiation, optical illusions and charming pictures of the mirage,
attributed by superstitious ignorance to the influence of enchantment.
The unbroken stillness of the Desert, the wide expanse of uninhabited
territory, produce a sense of mental depression, accompanied by an
apprehension of danger from the convulsions of nature and the violence
of man, which no experience seems able to remove; affecting even the
sturdy camel-driver, familiar with these solitudes from childhood, who
shudders as he urges his string of panting beasts over the drifted
sand-heaps and through the mountain fastness, the reputed haunt of evil
genii and the vantage ground from whence the murderous banditti oft
beset the caravan. So deeply-rooted and tenacious is this feeling that
the Arab regards a journey successfully performed as just cause for
congratulation, and indeed not inferior to a triumph, as is indicated
by his familiar proverb, “Travel is a victory.”
The modern geographical division of Arabia into The Stony, The Desert,
The Happy is arbitrary, and unknown to the people the boundaries of
whose country it purports to establish. The distinctions between the
various tribes of the Peninsula have always been determined by mode of
life, habits, and tradition rather than by the accident of locality;
have been, in fact, rather personal than territorial. This peculiarity
is the result of an extraordinary persistence of a national type which
neither a new physical environment, nor the change of political and
economic conditions, nor the lapse of centuries has been able to modify
sensibly, still less to eradicate completely. Hence has arisen the
division of the Arabian people into two classes, nomadic and sedentary,
the only one universally recognized by them, and whose line of
demarcation has always been sharply defined.
The primordial story of Arabia is lost in the unfathomable darkness of
antiquity. The annals of no people are involved in more uncertainty
or present greater difficulties in their investigation than those of
the Bedouins, as the popular accounts which we possess of their early
history bear unquestionable indications of recent date and fictitious
origin. Ignorant of the art of writing for centuries before the time of
Mohammed, their traditions were orally transmitted, and, in addition
to being necessarily subject to all the defects of this mode of
communication, were colored by that love of exaggeration and falsehood
which seems to be an integral part of the Oriental character. The
meagre hints which can be gleaned from these unsatisfactory materials
are all that we can rely upon in the almost hopeless attempt to
construct a chronological and historical outline of pre-Islamic events.
The statements of Moslem writers concerning these events must be
subjected to rigid criticism. They suppressed many facts, and condemned
indiscriminately the practices of their heathen ancestors; although
they knew that the Prophet drew his inspiration largely from this
source, and that Islamism could never have been established without
the acceptance of many of these idolatrous ceremonies in all their
integrity. As far as can at present be determined by the aid of the
imperfect and suspicious data at our command, and by a comparison of
the physical and mental characteristics of surrounding nations, Arabia
has long been a base of extensive emigration, chiefly into Central
Asia; while her southern and eastern provinces have, from the days when
some famished Bedouin first discovered the marvellous fertility enjoyed
by the Valley of the Nile, been the prolific source from whence Egypt
recruited her diminishing population.
On the other hand, the influence of neighboring countries upon Arabia
has been attended, in its turn, with consequences of the greatest
importance. It was peculiarly fortunate that her geographical situation
rendered her maritime cities--and in a still greater degree her
interior settlements--entrepôts for the distribution of the luxuries
of the East and West. Of the latter, in ancient times, and indeed
until superseded by the doubtful advantages of Mecca, Petra was the
most remarkable. The latter was a veritable troglodytic city. Its
dwellings, excavated in the solid rock, disclose by their vast extent
that at one time they must have sheltered a population of at least a
hundred and sixty thousand souls. Nor was Petra the only town of this
kind in Northern Arabia. Many others almost rivalled it in size and
opulence, in the splendid architecture of their temples, in the vast
ramifications of their commercial interests, in the sybaritic luxury of
their inhabitants. Under such conditions a high degree of civilization
must necessarily have been reached, which, however, had disappeared
with the decline of Phœnician influence at a period long before the
dawn of the Christian era. From an epoch not improbably coeval with the
establishment of the first Egyptian dynasty there had been an almost
incessant passing and repassing of strangers, attracted by the profits
of the Ethiopian and Indian trade, upon the highways, which in every
direction traversed the Peninsula. This continual intercourse with
foreigners, the curious information of distant lands which the latter
imparted, the mysterious dogmas of unknown faiths which they professed,
their extensive learning and polished manners, insensibly enlarged the
sphere of observation and activity, developed the mental faculties,
and softened the rudeness of the wild tribes of the Desert. Many of
these traders were Phœnicians and Jews whom a common origin, indicated,
among other traits, by a striking similarity of language, brought at
once into familiar and intimate contact. with the Arabs. The commercial
intercourse of Arabia with Egypt is known from inscriptions to have
existed for thirty-five hundred years before Christ, and that with
Phœnicia may, not improbably, have been of equal antiquity.
No greater contrast can be imagined than that presented by the
respective lives of the Arabs and their neighbors and kindred, the
denizens of the Valley of the Nile. The actions of the former, like
those of all pastoral nations, were irregular, uncertain, capricious.
The existence of the latter was controlled by the unvarying phenomena
of the Great River, whose influence was perceptible in every phase
of political, religious, and social life; whose inundations were
symbolical of prosperity, and whose rise was announced by the celestial
messenger Sirius, the most magnificent star in the heavens. The
subjects of the Pharaohs were dependent upon Arabia for the gums
and aromatics so extensively used in embalming; and these precious
substances, which must have been produced far more abundantly then than
now, were also exported to Phœnicia and Palestine, whence considerable
quantities annually found their way into Europe to be consumed in
sacrificial ceremonies, in the service of medicine, and in the
ostentatious pomp of patrician luxury.
The maritime and agricultural advantages possessed by the southern
coast of the Peninsula--designated by the Romans as Arabia the Happy,
and afterwards, by the natives, as Yemen, “The Country on the Right
Hand” (because the speaker was supposed to stand at Mecca)--had enabled
that region to attain to a degree of prosperity and civilization
unknown to the pastoral settlements of the interior. Nothing can
now be ascertained concerning the early history of Yemen, the royal
genealogies of whose sovereigns nevertheless include a period of
twenty-two hundred years. Nor can speculation, with any degree of
probability, assign even an approximate date to the beginning of
its commercial relations with the East. Not only did the bold and
adventurous spirit of the Arabian sailors lead them to the extreme
Orient, but their coasting vessels regularly visited the shores of the
Persian Gulf and the bays and inlets of the African coast; undertakings
far more hazardous, if not more lucrative, than voyages to distant
Hindustan. From the latter country the native and foreign merchants
introduced, with articles of traffic, many idolatrous practices and
dogmas of a corrupt philosophy, destined subsequently to manifest
the powerful hold they had obtained upon the popular mind by their
incorporation into the creed of Islam.
All classic writers who have written upon the subject agree in
attributing great wealth to Southern Arabia, a land familiar to
antiquity as Saba, or Sheba. Herodotus, Strabo, and Pliny frequently
allude to it as the richest country on the globe. Its agricultural
resources, dependent upon a vast and intricate hydraulic system
which embraced hundreds of leagues of productive territory, were the
principal basis of its prosperity. Its streams were confined by massive
walls of masonry of cyclopean dimensions and by great embankments.
One of these reservoirs was eighteen miles in circuit and a hundred
and twenty feet deep. Its stones were laid in bitumen and bolted
together with iron rods. Many others, inferior in dimensions and of
not less solid construction, collected and retained the melted snows
of the mountains. The flow of water was regulated by sluices, and its
apportionment rigidly prescribed by law. This thorough system of
irrigation, applied to a soil of prodigious fertility under a tropical
sun, eventually produced results rivalling those of the vaunted
plantations of Babylonia. An innumerable population, distributed
throughout this favored territory in hundreds of cities and villages,
carried to its highest perfection the cultivation of the soil. The
daily expenses of the royal household were fifteen Babylonian talents,
eighty-five thousand five hundred dollars of our money. It is related
that Mareb, the capital, stood in a vast expanse of perennial verdure,
where the branches of the trees, touching each other, formed a vault
of continuous shade over the highways, of such extent that a horseman
would require a journey of two months’ duration to traverse the
cultivated portion of the realm of the monarchs of Saba. One of the
latter was the famous Queen Balkis, the friend and admirer of Solomon.
In a region so fortunately situated for commerce, mercantile activity
kept pace with agricultural development. The merchants of Saba
enjoyed a reputation for shrewdness, ability, wealth, and enterprise
not inferior to that of the Phœnicians themselves. They engaged in
transactions involving immense pecuniary investments. They despatched
great fleets to China. Their caravans traversed the Syrian and African
deserts. They exported to Persia annually a thousand talents weight
of frankincense. Not only did they purchase directly the commodities
in which they dealt, but they also bought and sold extensively on
commission. Their warehouses were filled with the rich products of a
score of climes; silver vessels; ingots of copper, tin, iron, and lead;
honey and wax; silks, ivory, ebony, coral, agates; civet, musk, myrrh,
camphor, and other aromatics, some of which were worth many times their
weight in gold. Such was their prodigal luxury that only sandal-wood
and cinnamon were used as fuel in the preparation of their food. The
vegetable kingdom contributed no insignificant share to the commercial
wealth of Southern Arabia. Coffee, indigenous to the Peninsula, was
exported as a luxury to the provinces of Asia. In that dry climate,
where flourished every known variety of cereals, grain could be stored
without injury for thirty years. The cotton-plant, the sugar-cane, the
cocoa-palm, yielded enormous revenues to those who engaged in their
culture. The balsam of Mecca, the gum Arabic, the sap of the _Acacia
Vera_, and the famed frankincense were also important articles of
export. The country was reputed to be rich in minerals; inexhaustible
deposits of salt existed in Saba; gold was found in the mountains;
but Arabia produced no iron, which Strabo says in his time was equal
in value to the precious metals. The pearl fisheries of the coast,
opposite to the Isles of Bahrein, were unrivalled for the beauty and
value of their products.
For an unknown period, embracing, however, many centuries, the
prosperity of the kingdom of Saba continued. Then it suddenly
declined; a general emigration took place, and the former paradise was
transformed into an uninhabited desert. The cause of this great and
profound change, involving the desolation of a vast region and the
dispersion of an entire people, is hidden in obscurity. The puerile
fables which attribute it to a threatened inundation from the rupture
of a dike are unworthy of notice. It is probable that this calamity
was mainly due to the diversion of the caravan traffic to the channels
of the Red Sea, to the abandonment of stations, to the cessation of
revenue, and to the consequent dearth of the means of subsistence.
Foreign wars or domestic convulsions, which, aided by increasing luxury
and subsequent weakness, also contributed to drain the resources and
exhaust the population of the kingdom, may have hastened the ultimate
catastrophe that is supposed to have occurred during the first century
of the Christian era.
From this epoch the traditions of the Arabs become more and more
confused. Some tribes seem to have emigrated to Mesopotamia, others to
have settled in the vicinity of Medina, then called Yathreb, where they
intermarried with the Jews already established in that city. We know
nothing further of Arabian annals till the promulgation of the faith of
Islam began a new chapter in the history of nations. Before the Hegira
no date could be fixed with certainty, as there was no chronological
system by which to ascertain the year of an historical occurrence,
and no public or private records existed to preserve it. But a step
beyond the unreliable transmission of past events by tradition were the
inscriptions occasionally made upon the shoulder-blades of animals. Not
only was the material indispensable to the scribe entirely wanting,
but the ability to use it was possessed by only an insignificant
number of the people. Among the nomadic Bedouins contempt for literary
accomplishments, except that of extemporaneous poetical composition,
universally prevailed. Even in the great commercial city of Mecca, at
the time of the publication of the Koran, there was but one man who
could write. It was not without reason that Mohammed designated the
long and obscure period preceding the Hegira, the Age of Ignorance.
Arabia, alone among the countries accessible to the ambition of
the powerful sovereigns of antiquity, escaped the humiliation of
conquest. The genius of Alexander had planned its subjugation, but
death prevented the realization of his vast, perhaps impracticable,
design. The legions of Augustus, trained under the discipline of the
greatest of the Cæsars, proved unequal to the task of triumphing over
a region where the soil, the elements, and the valor of its defenders
formed a combination invincible by human prowess. The Persians, for a
period of insignificant duration, occupied the western and southern
coasts, having previously expelled the Abyssinians, who had invaded
and retained a portion of Yemen during the sixth century. No nation,
however, was ever able to claim supremacy over any considerable
portion of the Arabian Peninsula. For this immunity it was indebted
not only to the natural obstacles which defied the advance and the
maintenance of an invading army, but also to the superstitious fears
with which cunning and credulity had surrounded its name. It was a land
of mysterious portents and prodigies, whose borders were guarded by
malignant demons; whose deserts, all but impenetrable to the boldest
adventurer, were inhabited by cannibal giants and monstrous birds of
prey that watched over treasures placed by evil spirits under the
spell of enchantment. Every caravan that left Phœnicia for Central
Arabia carried quantities of storax, which the Tyrian merchants
declared was burnt in the neighborhood of the frankincense shrubs,
that its offensive fumes might drive away the winged serpents which
were their custodians. The climate was said to be so pestilential that
slaves and criminals alone were employed to gather the precious gum,
their liberty being conditional upon their success. These politic
inventions, implicitly believed by the ignorant, while they insured to
the shrewd traders of Phœnicia a monopoly of the valuable products of
the Peninsula, exercised no inconsiderable influence over the popular
mind of the ancients, and clothed the Desert with terrors which even
the reputation and allurements of its prodigious wealth were unable
entirely to overcome.
As a result of its exemption from foreign dominion, no other country
has preserved the integrity of its customs, its language, and the
personality of its inhabitants to such a degree as Arabia. It alone
still presents a picture of the government and the domestic economy
of patriarchal antiquity. Its manners are those which prevailed
centuries before the time of Abraham. The wonderfully sonorous and
flexible idiom of the Koran was already formed before the Bible or
the Iliad was written. The absolute immobility of the Arabian in his
native haunts, contrasted with his ready adaptation to diametrically
opposite conditions elsewhere, is one of the most striking anomalies
of human character. The influence of Greece and Rome, whose taste in
art and maxims of government have left their traces wherever either
the valor or the enterprise of those nations has been able to obtain a
foothold, is not perceptible in the political or domestic history of
Arabia. No ruins of any majestic structure raised by the master-hand
of the Athenian or Roman architect have ever been discovered in the
great Peninsula, the accounts of whose commercial wealth were matters
of popular faith and wonder throughout the ancient world. And, what
is probably a more conclusive indication of the permanent absence of
foreign influence than any other, however plausible, no name with
a Greek or Latin termination has survived in the dialects of those
Arabian settlements most intimately associated with the trade of Europe
for many centuries.
This inflexibility of national peculiarities becomes invaluable in
tracing the causes of the decay and disruption of the great Moslem
empires which subsequently dominated so large a portion of the globe.
The ethnography of a people who have stamped their characteristics
deeply upon succeeding ages; whose customs, laws, and language have,
to a certain degree, survived their dominion; the analogy between the
religious dogmas which they professed and those which have supplanted
them; the play of passions, destructive or beneficent, exhibited by
those rulers whom hereditary descent or the accident of fortune raised
to supreme authority; the development of the transplanted race, its
precocious maturity, the lasting effects of its intellectual supremacy,
and its slow but inevitable decline, are circumstances well deserving
the attentive scrutiny of the philosophical historian. The absence
of reliable information renders impossible an accurate conception
of the mental and physical traits of the Arab of two thousand years
ago. But, as we know the extreme conservatism of Orientals, their
pronounced aversion to change, the obstinate persistence of their
traditions, and the general outlines of their character, we may with
safety assume that the shepherd who now roams over the desert plateaus
of Nejd and Oman is the intellectual counterpart of the Amalekite
of the Bible, and that the Arab whose features are sculptured upon
the eternal walls of Edfou and Karnak did not differ in any material
respect from the predatory Bedouin of to-day. It is a strange
anomaly in a land, the greater portion of which, either through the
obduracy of Nature or the indolence of its inhabitants, had been for
ages condemned to eternal sterility and isolated by sea and desert
from contemporaneous civilization, to encounter a race whose genius
was capable of at once adapting itself, with equal facility, to
the formation and development of an agricultural system surpassing
that of any other people, ancient or modern; to the invention of
mechanical devices of marvellous ingenuity; to the solution of the most
abstruse mathematical problems; to the perfection of a graceful and
exquisite order of architecture, unique in design, infinite in detail,
remarkable in execution, unrivalled in beauty of ornament; to the
protracted investment of cities and the attainment and exercise of that
proficiency in the intricate system of military tactics indispensable
to success in the art of war; to the foundation and the preservation
of empires. A long and tedious apprenticeship is usually required for
the attainment to perfection in any of these accomplishments; but the
versatile Arab seemed, by intuition, to be able to grasp them all,
without previous experience or instruction. In literature, as well,
was this pre-eminence of genius disclosed. Poetry was the sole form of
literary manifestation appreciated by the Arabic mind; improvisation
the only talent it deemed worthy of applause. Even among the most
intelligent, nothing deserving of the name of history was preserved;
and the genealogies upon which the Arabs prided themselves were merely
interminable lists of barbarians of local or tribal celebrity, and
dreary catalogues of idols. Yet their predatory hordes effected a great
intellectual revolution in every country which submitted to their sway.
In addition to their own memorable achievements, they developed and
expanded, to the utmost, the mental faculties of their subjects and
tributaries. By precept and example, they aroused the emulation and
rewarded the efforts of all who struggled to escape from the fetters of
ignorance which had been riveted by the superstition and prejudice of
ages passed in ignominious servitude. Their conquests in the world of
letters offer a far more noble title to renown than the laurels won on
fields of appalling carnage or the prestige acquired by the subjugation
of vast provinces and kingdoms. To the finest literary productions of
modern times does this subtle intellectual power extend. The impress
of Arabian genius can be detected in the novels of Boccaccio, in
the romances of Cervantes, in the philosophy of Voltaire, in the
“Principia” of Newton, in the tragedies of Shakspeare. Its domain is
coincident with the boundaries of modern civilization, its influence
imperishable in its character.
These far-reaching results are neither derived from spontaneous impulse
nor are they of fortuitous origin. They indicate unmistakably a gradual
and incessant advance through long periods of time. The inexorable
laws which control the destiny of man require a transition through
many connected forms, insensibly merging into each other, eventually
to effect radical changes in the mental and physical characteristics
of individuals and nations. The evolution of a race, like the
development of architectural construction, is slow but progressive.
The union between the foundation and the superstructure is evident,
although the former may not at the first glance be visible. A great
distance separates the barbaric sheik of pre-Islamic Arabia and the
powerful and enlightened khalifs of Bagdad and Cordova. Yet both the
Abbaside and the Ommeyade dynasties traced their lineage directly to
the Bedouin robbers, who, each year, waylaid the Mecca caravan. There
is no apparent resemblance between the rude structures of prehistoric
antiquity and the matchless edifices erected by Athenian genius and
skill. It cannot be disputed, however, that the unhewn and misshapen
shaft of the cyclopean quarry, which had neither fluting nor volute,
base nor capital, was the architectural prototype of the superb columns
which adorned the temples of ancient Greece and Rome. In view of the
rapid advance of the Arabs under Mohammed’s successors, we are forced
to concede to their pagan ancestors not only intellectual powers of the
highest order, apparently inconsistent with the degraded conditions
of savage life, but also an extraordinary capacity for political
organization and for the practical application of the principles of
every art beneficial to mankind; talents unconsciously formed and
dormant through countless generations; a fact which may well excite
the admiration of every scholar, and of which history in previous or
subsequent times affords no example.
The Arabs, despite their apparent barbarism, occupy no contemptible
place in the annals of antiquity. They conquered Egypt, and, under
the dynasty of the Shepherd Kings, governed that country for many
centuries. One of their race, enlisted as a private soldier, was, by a
series of rapid promotions, raised to the throne of the Roman empire.
Their cavalry fought with conspicuous distinction in the imperial
armies. More than once the valor of Bedouin mercenaries determined the
fate of the Persian monarchy. They constituted the greater part of the
forces of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, in her desperate struggle with
Aurelian. Under whatever banner they served, their courage and tenacity
of purpose were never questioned. It must be admitted, however, that
their fidelity was not beyond suspicion, and that, only too frequently,
the name of Arab was a synonym of treachery.
The most remarkable peculiarity of Arabian life is its restless energy.
The continuance of this condition from primeval times explains many of
the distinctive traits so prominent in the character of the race. The
well-known relation existing between commercial activity and civilized
habits was powerless to change the existence of the nomadic Arab.
His predatory instinct was always stronger than the attractions of
sedentary comfort and opulence. Familiarity with Oriental luxury only
increased his contempt for those who enjoyed it. His vagrant impulse
carried him everywhere. He fearlessly penetrated the mysterious depths
of the Libyan Desert. He served in the armies of Hindustan. He was
enrolled in the Prætorian Guards, where his natural rapacity was
gratified and stimulated by the donatives received for the ignominious
sale of the imperial throne. For a considerable time before the
advent of Mohammed, an increasing spirit of unrest had characterized
the Arabs. With roving and predatory tastes, there could, of course,
be no attachment to the soil,--a condition, indeed, regarded by the
Bedouin as a badge of servitude. It required centuries to correct this
prejudice; but no change of residence, no association with populations
long civilized, or even the adoption of a new polity, the admonitions
of a new religion, and the powerful attractions of affluence and ease,
were ever able to eradicate the spirit of individual independence and
tribal hostility which were the most prominent features of the Arabian
character. These national peculiarities repeatedly threatened the
existence of both the Eastern and Western Khalifates in the days of
their greatest splendor. They intensified the bitterness which marked
the struggles of rival princes for empire. They promoted and sustained
the feuds of the nobility. They lurked under the tattered garments of
the infuriated zealot. In the minds of the populace these feelings
were scarcely ever concealed. They manifested themselves continually
in personal quarrels, in the violence of mobs, in religious tumults,
in insurrections, in the commission of frightful atrocities. They were
potent factors in the destruction of mediæval Moslem civilization
wherever established, and especially is this true of the Hispano-Arab
domination, the most advanced, if not the most despotic, of them all.
The temperament of the Arab, impetuous, fiery, vindictive, though
admirably fitted for conquest, was deficient in those qualities of
broad statesmanship and impartial discrimination vitally essential
to the security and maintenance of government. Those who enjoyed the
highest privileges of individual freedom were the mountaineers, who,
in their inaccessible haunts, inured to privation, skilled in all
manly exercises, and ignorant of luxury, clung with obstinate tenacity
to their idols, and defied all attempts of the Prophet to convert or
subdue them. Nor did Islam enlist her adherents in the purlieus of
crowded cities. In Pagan as in Moslem Arabia, trade and religion were
closely associated. The sympathies of the organized community were with
the ancient religion, which contributed to its wealth, its employment,
its personal profit, and its social distinction. The merchants and
their numerous dependents looked coldly upon a revelation which menaced
their revenues and their importance. The priesthood, recruited from
the noblest families of the Peninsula, fostered this prejudice with
an ardor born of instinctive hatred and professional pride. These two
classes, therefore, contributed little to the propagation of the new
doctrines; it was the wild hordes of the Desert that conquered the
world.
The Himyarite inscriptions, recently deciphered, have established
the fact that, at an unknown epoch, two migratory populations, one
proceeding from the North, the other from the South, came together in
their course, and were so blended by association and intermarriage as
to form, in a short time, a single people. This rapid fusion points to
a common racial derivation, and it is not improbable that the northern
division were the Canaanites expelled by the sword of Joshua.
The very conditions of their existence, in early times, necessarily
precluded the idea of systematic organization or concerted union
among the vagabond tribes of Arabia. Their polity, if it may be
dignified by that name, was essentially patriarchal. Chief’s and
rulers were selected from families renowned for individual merit,
noble descent, and antiquity of origin, and, in accordance with the
paternal custom of the Orient, all retainers of the prince--who, in
fact, were usually related to him--were in time enrolled as members
of his household; and, in this way, fragments of certain tribes,
drawn to a common centre by the ties of real or fancied kindred or
through the fear of annihilation, acquired a great preponderance over
their neighbors. Before the establishment of Mohammedan rule, there
was no government, no code of laws, no superior authority either
delegated to or assumed by the magistrate. Each family was independent;
each member of it recognized no obligation to society except the
protection of his clansmen. The instinct of self-preservation, the
force of public opinion, and the apprehension of the encroachments of
rival tribes were the only motives sufficiently powerful to effect a
temporary union of those whose vital interests were threatened. The
power of the sheik was nominal; his functions advisory rather than
executive. His station was one of more honor than usefulness; of his
own volition he could neither direct military operations, enforce
obedience, reward merit, nor inflict punishment. The affairs of the
tribe were administered by such of its members as were conspicuous
for age, dignity, and wisdom. Even the decision of such a council was
not imperative in cases where the general welfare was concerned; for,
under such circumstances, the judgment of every personage of wealth,
rank, or social distinction was consulted. Absolutism, so prominent
a feature of Asiatic government, and carried to such an extreme by
Mohammed’s successors, was thus unknown in ancient Arabia. Dominated by
the tumultuous freedom of individual caprice, its isolated communities
were not even subject to the ordinary legal restrictions imposed
by the voice of democracy; and their control approached as near to
anarchical license as was compatible with the bare preservation of
society. Natural obstacles, such as the scarcity of water and the
barrenness of the soil, added to long-inherited prejudice, traditional
enmity, and difficulty of intercommunication, have always prevented the
political and intellectual development of the Arabs in their native
land. The persistence of his original institutions after the mighty
revolutions elsewhere wrought by Islam prove conclusively that national
regeneration of the Arab under the sky of the Desert is a practical
impossibility.
The life of the Bedouin was passed in unremitting hostility. War
was the normal condition of his existence; it supplied the sole
incentives he deemed worthy of attention--the gratification of
revenge, the acquisition of glory, the appropriation of the property
of his neighbor. The indulgence of these passions, and especially
of the ignoble propensity to rapine, and his cruelty, were his most
conspicuous and discreditable characteristics. The occupation of
robbery was in the eyes of the Arab rather honorable than otherwise, as
it was intimately associated with the profession of arms. In a society
without the resources of agriculture, manufactures, or commerce,
violent means must be relied on for the sustenance of life. In the
Desert the only available expedients to this end were the plunder of
enemies and the blackmail of travellers. The total absence of organized
government rendered the possession of property doubly precarious.
Nowhere else was the fickleness of fortune so apparent. The attack of
a hostile tribe might render the most opulent individual a pauper in
a single night. No vigilance could prevent such a catastrophe in a
region affording unlimited opportunities for surprise and ambuscade,
where there was no title to the soil, where the wealth of a community
consisted largely of flocks of sheep and herds of camels. Under
circumstances where a man’s importance and position among his fellows
were dependent upon his inclination to encounter danger and his
capacity to elude detection in the pursuit of pillage, poverty became
disgraceful. Constant apprehension bred distrust of strangers, until
it became a predominant national trait. Where two parties of Bedouins,
unknown to each other, met in the Desert, the stronger immediately
attacked the weaker. A daring predatory enterprise conferred the
highest popular distinction upon its hero. A great robber, who united
the qualities of courage and duplicity, and who had amassed wealth
by his exploits, was the idol of his tribe. The memory of the famous
brigand Harami is even now cherished in the Hedjaz with an admiring
veneration scarcely inferior to that conferred upon his countryman
Mohammed.
The mental constitution of the ancient Arab presented many remarkable
inconsistencies, most of which are still apparent in the character of
his descendants. Brave even to temerity, he felt no compunction at
the secret assassination of a foe. Professing reverence for age and
relying for guidance upon the advice of the elders of his tribe, he
did not hesitate to drive the old and infirm from the public feast.
While the greatest renown attended the plunder of an encampment,
the commission of a trifling theft made the perpetrator an object
of universal detestation. He assisted the unfortunate and plundered
the defenceless with equal alacrity. The exercise of a generous and
unselfish hospitality was no bar to the pursuit of a guest after he had
left the inviolable precincts of the camp. In many respects, however,
the character of the Bedouin was eminently worthy of admiration. His
courage was undisputed. He possessed a high sense of personal honor.
The fugitive who solicited his protection, even though he were an
enemy, was safe so long as he remained within the enclosure of his
tent, and he espoused the cause of the unknown suppliant as if it were
his own. After sunset, his blazing watch-fire, like a friendly beacon,
guided the course of the belated wanderer over the desert sea. He
disputed with his neighbors for the honor of entertaining the stranger,
and the deepest reproach he could undergo was the imputation that he
was deficient in the virtue of hospitality. His sense of chivalry,
nurtured amidst the constant perils of an uncertain existence, was
conspicuous in the respect and consideration he afterwards exhibited
in the treatment of woman. His simplicity of manner and gravity of
demeanor imparted an air of dignity to his appearance, which elicited
the respect of those far superior to him in rank, education, and
knowledge. Patient in adversity, he considered the display of grief as
an unpardonable evidence of weakness. His love of liberty dominated
his nature to an extent impossible of appreciation by those subject
to the salutary restraints of civilized communities. The existence
of many noble qualities in the character of the Arab, however, only
rendered its defects the more glaring. His apparent imperturbability
screened from the public gaze many vices and imperfections. Like all
barbarians, his disposition was largely infantile and capricious,
petulant, diverted by trifles, controlled by instinct rather than
by reason, quick to take offence, and relentlessly vindictive. Of
all beings he was pre-eminently the creature of impulse. His pride
was inordinate, his rapacity insatiable. With him the prosecution of
vengeance was a sacred duty, which took precedence of every moral
and social obligation; and such was his enmity, that he regarded
the forgiveness of a serious injury as the badge of a coward. An
incorrigible braggart, he never hesitated to employ treachery when it
would accomplish the purposes of valor. He practised cannibalism, and
like the ferocious Scandinavians drank from the skulls of slaughtered
victims. Participation in these horrid banquets was not confined to
warriors; women also were present at them, and wore, with savage pride,
necklaces and amulets composed of the ears, noses, and bones of the
dead.
Under the pretext of preventing future dishonor, but really with a
view to economy, under conditions of existence involving a perpetual
struggle, he often buried his female children alive. It is said that
Othman was never known to weep except when, at the burial of his little
daughter, she reached up and caressingly wiped the dust of her grave
from his beard. From such unspeakable atrocities as this did Mohammed
deliver his countrymen.
The Arabs practised both polyandry and polygamy to an extent rarely
countenanced by other barbarians. One woman, whose career would seem
to be unique in the history of matrimonial achievement, was celebrated
for having been the wife of forty husbands. In a society where communal
marriage prevailed, the passion of jealousy was necessarily unknown.
The Pagan Arab indulged to the utmost the vice of drunkenness, and
prided himself upon his capacity to absorb great quantities of
liquor--there were some Himyarite princes who obtained an unenviable
immortality by drinking themselves to death. Gambling was so popular in
the Desert that the Bedouin, like the ancient German, often staked his
liberty, his most priceless possession, on the toss of a pebble. Like
the Hebrew patriarchs, he contracted incestuous marriages. He gloried
in the name of brigand, and regarded the capture of a caravan as the
principal object of life. It was not unusual for him, after plundering
the dead, to mutilate them with a brutal malignity that would disgrace
an American Indian. He tested guilt or innocence by ordeals of fire
and water, which he and his kinsman the Jew had inherited from a remote
antiquity. The practice of licentious gallantry, universally prevalent
in the Peninsula, and celebrated in many an amatory stanza of the
Bedouin poet, was temporarily checked by the austere rule of Islam;
but, reviving ere long, under the congenial skies of Spain and Sicily,
spread northward, and, inseparably associated with deeds of chivalry
and romantic adventure, infected, in time, the rude and comparatively
virtuous barbarians of Europe.
An unusual degree of intelligence, a lively imagination, a vivid
curiosity, a retentive memory, a childish love of the marvellous,
distinguished the Arab of the Age of Ignorance from the other
pastoral nations of Africa and Asia. Feuds between tribe and tribe,
nourished by injuries mutually borne and inflicted for a hundred
generations, intensified the ferocity of a nature which became, under
such provocations, incapable of pity. Everything connected with the
daily life of the warrior had a direct tendency to foster an already
too violent inclination to deeds of blood. The war-horse had his
biography; the sword of every famous chieftain had a name and a
history. The sayings of the successful marauder, often uttered with
epigrammatic terseness, passed into proverbs, and were quoted, with
extravagant admiration, by his most remote descendants; his exploits,
immortalized by the stirring verses of the poet, were recounted nightly
by the camp-fires of his tribe. In case of the murder of a kinsman,
no mourning was tolerated until ample vengeance had been taken for
the crime. The execution of the savage law of blood-feud, while it
contributed to stifle every sentiment of humanity where an hereditary
foe was the offender, does not appear to have had any marked effect in
increasing the fierceness of the character of the Arab in his contests
with those against whom he had no special cause of enmity. Where tribal
hostility was, however, a point of honor as well as a religious duty,
the vendetta was prosecuted with implacable severity. No circumstance
of gratitude or chivalric attachment, neither the memory of past favors
nor the hope of future distinction, was permitted to interfere with its
rigid enforcement. The right of revenge, originally descending to the
fifth generation, passed by inheritance, and was, in fact, never lost,
and seldom relinquished. A regular schedule of fines was recognized,
dependent upon the age, rank, and social position of the person
murdered; but no family that entertained a becoming idea of its own
importance and of the dignity of its tribe would condescend to accept
the stated number of camels which ancient prescription and common
consent had established as the equivalent of a homicide. This barbarous
custom applied to every soldier slain in honorable warfare, as fully
as to the victim of the assassin’s dagger; and the wholesome dread of
the consequences of a hard-fought conflict, where a score of lives
might be exacted in return for every fallen enemy, usually rendered the
encounters of the Arab comparatively bloodless. An extraordinary value
therefore attached to human life in the Desert, where the killing of
an individual might entail the extermination of a clan. Considering
the bitter hostility evinced by many tribes towards one another,
the consequences of animosity inherited for ages, and the continual
opportunities for mutual destruction, with their insignificant results,
we may, without hesitation, conclude that the law of blood-revenge,
despite the idea of ferocity it conveys, has, in reality, been
powerfully instrumental in the preservation of the Arab race.
The habits of the Arab were necessarily abstemious. The requirement of
constant exertion to obtain the necessaries of life, the uncertain
tenure of property, the menacing presence of danger, the poverty of the
soil, the national prejudice against industrial occupations, were not
conducive to indulgence in those vices which flourish most vigorously
under the artificial conditions of an established civilization. The
scanty harvests of the South were insufficient to maintain even the
population of those thinly settled provinces. Among the products of the
vegetable kingdom, the date was the principal reliance of the nomadic
people of Arabia. Of this most valuable fruit a hundred varieties
grew in the neighborhood of Medina alone. Its highly nutritious
properties, its easy preservation, the convenience with which it
could be transported for great distances, rendered it an article of
food especially adapted to the denizen of those arid and unproductive
regions in which it flourished, and which, without it, would have been
depopulated. Even its seeds were an object of traffic, and were fed
to horses and camels. With the Arabs, as with other nomadic races, a
vegetable diet was resorted to only in case of necessity. The quantity
of meat served at a repast was an index to the host’s importance as
well as the measure of his hospitality. A brass caldron was considered
as of only ordinary size when it would easily hold a sheep, and some
were so large that a horseman could, without difficulty, eat from
them without dismounting. The morsels served from these seething
receptacles were proportioned to the vessels in which they were cooked
and to the voracious appetites of those who consumed them. The belief,
prevalent among barbarians, that the characteristics of an animal are
transmitted with undiminished vigor to all who feed upon its flesh,
was shared by the Arabs. As their favorite meat was that of the camel,
they attributed to its use their irascible temper, a trait which is
prominently developed in that beast, also noted among quadrupeds
for its dogged obstinacy. In a land where barrenness so discouraged
the labors of the husbandman and the shepherd, no object affording
nutrition could be neglected, and even the insect world was called upon
to contribute its share to the urgent necessities of humanity. Locusts,
dried and salted, have always formed a staple article of diet among the
poorer classes of Arabia, and, an important part of the larder of every
camp, are sold in vast quantities in the markets of the Peninsula.
The differences and the prejudices of caste, the most serious
impediments to progress, were unknown to the proud rovers of the
Desert, where individual merit was the highest title to respect.
The authority of the chief was founded on the consideration he had
obtained among the members of his tribe rather than on the illustrious
circumstances of his birth or the antiquity of his lineage. Age was
an essential requisite to the attainment of official dignity, as
indicative of the wisdom supposed to be the result of long experience.
With the Bedouin, there was none of that greed of power whose
indulgence so often disturbs the peace, and inflames the passions of
societies in an advanced state of civilization. The sheik governed
through the respect entertained for his character, through the
influence of his manners, above all, through his relationship with
his clansmen. The paternal sentiment was paramount among the Arabian
people. They cherished the memory of their forefathers with peculiar
respect. The right of sanctuary attached to their sepulchre; the tribal
organization and domestic traditions of the Bedouin were derived
from this feeling of ancestral veneration. Like other Asiatics, they
considered a numerous family the greatest of distinctions; the father
of ten sons was ennobled by a title of honor; and no nation attached
more importance to the possession of phenomenal virility. In their
treatment of women, a striking contrast exists, in numerous instances,
between the Pagan and the later Arabians. With both, it is true,
woman was generally a slave. Yet sometimes, in the Age of Ignorance,
she was raised to official dignities, even to the throne itself; her
opinion was solicited in momentous affairs of state; and in the rôle
of diviner and sorceress she wielded a power, unlimited for good or
evil, over her superstitious followers. Often gifted with rare poetic
talent, she competed, not without distinction, for the coveted palm
of literary excellence. Tradition has also handed down the names and
achievements of certain intrepid amazons, who fought by the side of
their husbands and brothers; and whose determined courage contributed,
in a marked degree, to change the fortunes of more than one doubtful
battle. But, as a rule, both before and after Mohammed, the advancement
of the sex from a condition of servitude was resolutely discountenanced
by the Arabs. In the Age of Ignorance, it was stigmatized by the
ungallant epithet of “Nets of the Demon.” The sacred ties of blood,
and the fact that with marriage woman did not renounce her hereditary
privileges, could always command the assistance of her kinsmen, seek
refuge among them, and be avenged by their valor in case of grievous
personal injury, gave her a considerable degree of importance in
the social system of Arabia. It is very evident that in early times
polyandry prevailed everywhere in that country, an indication of a
scarcity of females, and a custom always incident to a certain stage
in the formation and development of society. Its prior existence is
demonstrated by the vestiges of communal marriage to be traced to-day
in remote portions of the Peninsula, and in the well authenticated
tradition that female kinship was originally the rule in the Desert,
the child belonging to the tribe and following the fortunes of the
mother. Among the Bedouins, the only recognized methods of obtaining
a wife were those of capture and purchase. The former was thoroughly
congenial with the warlike instincts of a race whose possessions
acquired an especial value as the result of martial prowess; the latter
represented an indemnity for the possible loss of sons who, under other
circumstances, would have become warriors of the maternal tribe. There
was, however, no real difference between the lot of the bride who,
as the prize of victory, was dragged shrieking from the folds of her
tent, and that of the smiling victim whose beauty had been bartered
for a hundred camels. Both were regarded as chattels, and descended
with other personal property to the heir. As the population increased,
and the means of livelihood became more difficult to procure, the
appearance of a female child was looked upon as a calamity; infanticide
grew common; and nothing but the hope of being able, at some future
day, to add to his herd the camels of some prospective suitor, ever
reconciled the mercenary Bedouin to the birth of a daughter.
The attainment to a high degree of civilization with all its
demoralizing influence was not able to destroy the native politeness,
the air of conscious dignity, the noble hospitality, and the courtly
graces of manner which distinguished the fierce and untaught tribesman
of the Desert. His sense of independence was not hampered by invidious
distinctions of rank or inconvenient regulations of property. His
intuitive knowledge of human nature, his rare susceptibility to every
impression which can improve and develop the mind, his capacity to
deal with the most difficult questions of policy, his willingness to
encounter the most appalling dangers, were qualities which insured
his success in the most distant countries and under the most adverse
and discouraging conditions. Despite his readiness to profit by
the superior knowledge of his adversaries, he entertained the most
extravagant ideas of his own importance, and looked down upon all
who were of different manners, religious faith, or nationality. His
inordinate family pride preserved for the astonishment of subsequent
generations the endless nomenclature of his progenitors; and, at the
birth of Mohammed, the most obscure and poverty-stricken individual
could name, with a fluency born of long practice and traditional
inheritance, his ancestors for six hundred years. His language,
wonderfully complex but flexible, offering to the purposes of the poet
and the orator--by reason of its prodigal richness and inexhaustible
variety--every resource of sentiment, pathos, and eloquence, yet so
easily acquired that it was spoken by young children with grammatical
correctness and fluency, he justly boasted as one of the most perfect
idioms ever invented by man. In short, the Arab regarded himself as
the highest exemplar of humanity; his arrogance revolted at the idea
of matrimonial connections with races which he deemed inferior to his
own; and the pre-eminence he claimed for himself and his countrymen was
indicated by the prerogatives which he asserted Allah had vouchsafed to
them alone of all nations; “that their turbans should be their diadems,
their tents their houses, their swords their intrenchments, and their
poems their laws.”
The pre-Islamitic religion of the Arabs was mainly a debasing
idolatry polluted by human sacrifices, and ascending, by ill-defined
gradations, from the lowest forms of fetichism to the adoration of
the stars. Their faith was far from uniform, and almost every tribe
had special objects of veneration and peculiar modes of worship. Some
were absolutely destitute of the idea of a God; some grovelled before
roughly-hewn blocks of stone; others worshipped trees and springs,--the
most grateful gifts of nature in a parched and thirsty land; others,
again, greeted with praise the rising sun as its beams illuminated the
purple mists of the Desert, or bowed reverently at night before the
glittering majesty of the heavens. The members of certain tribes were
materialists; not a few accepted the metempsychosis; many were familiar
with the philosophical creed of the Buddhist, which regarded death as
the irrevocable end of all spiritual activity, the beginning of a state
of absolute quiescence, of eternal and immutable rest. The majority of
the Arab races, however, looked upon their idols as mediators between
the Supreme Being and man. Hence they erected temples in their honor,
named their children for them, made pilgrimages to their shrines, and
solicited their good offices with precious gifts and offerings. The
heavenly bodies were placed in the same category. Their intercession
with the Deity was also invoked by frequent applications; and to their
power, thus indirectly exercised, were attributed the most important
as well as the most trivial occurrences of life, the benefits of
fortune, the infliction of calamities, the mysterious and terrifying
effects of natural phenomena. It is a superstition as old as the human
race to imagine the universe to be peopled with mysterious beings,
and the lives of men to be moulded by the beneficent or malignant
influence of the stars. The worship of the Sun, the genial dispenser
of light, of warmth, of health, in whose train follow the increase of
flocks, the bursting of buds, the welcome sight of refreshing verdure,
the author of all that is useful and attractive in every species of
organic life, a worship which in ages of primeval simplicity has
always most strongly appealed to the gratitude and veneration of
man, was highly popular in Pagan Arabia. Classic historians have
established the fact that it was at one time almost universal in the
Peninsula, where the idol which was the terrestrial manifestation of
that great luminary was designated by the appellation Nur-Allah, “The
Light of God.” His authority was everywhere paramount, whether openly
worshipped, represented by fire the great purifying agent, or exhibited
under various symbols of force and power, which all nations, however
separated, and differing in physical and mental characteristics, have,
with wonderful unanimity, adopted as his peculiar emblems. Temples
were also raised to the Moon, Sirius, Canopus, the Hyades, Mercury,
and Jupiter. But of all the starry bodies none enjoyed greater favor,
or was worshipped with more splendor, than Saturn. His attributes were
often confounded by his votaries with those of his kindred divinities
Mars and the Sun. It has been proved by the learned researches of
Dozy, that the famous Kaaba was originally a shrine dedicated to that
deity. He was the Baal of the Hebrews, and once their tutelary god as
well as that of the Phœnicians--carried by the former during their
sojourn in the wilderness, venerated by the latter in the magnificent
temples of Sidon and Tyre. The extent of his worship in the East was,
it might be said, coincident with the view of the brilliant planet by
which he was represented in the tropical heavens. The giver of all
material blessings, he was, in this capacity, invoked as the creator
and preserver of terrestrial life; but he was also propitiated as the
avenger of sacrilege and crime. Among different peoples he was adored
under innumerable manifestations. The familiar word Israel is a synonym
of Saturn; the Hebrew priests knew him as Sabbathai--whence is derived
our Sabbath; and in Judea, as in Egypt, the first day of the week was
dedicated to and named for him. In Arabia, this popular divinity was
known as Hobal, a word indisputably derived from the Hebrew language.
Occupying the most exalted position in the Arabic Pantheon, while his
image was anthropomorphic, he was, in reality, a representative of the
monotheistic principle. His name and his worship in the Peninsula were
alike of Jewish origin. Antiquarian ingenuity and research have traced
his various migrations from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean to
the province of Hedjaz, and have elucidated certain obscure Scriptural
texts relative to his shrine, his worship, and his festivals. Among the
multitudinous divinities which claimed the reverence of the ancient
Arabians was also the Hebrew Jehovah, adored under the form of a
he-goat, sculptured in gold, as well as the profligate Venus, known
to the Babylonians as Mylitta, and to the Phœnicians as Astarte. As a
tribute to their eminence in the Christian world, the Virgin and the
Child occupied a post of honor among the three hundred and sixty idols
which crowded the sanctuary of Mecca. In the religious system of the
Peninsula there was no mythology, a fact which perhaps contributed not
a little to its speedy overthrow. But, though polytheistic to the last
degree, the Arabs recognized a Supreme Being whose majesty was confined
to no particular locality, to whom no altar was dedicated, and who, too
awful to be directly addressed, could be approached only through his
celestial ministers the stars. This was the great Al-Lah, whose name,
corresponding to the El and the Elohim of the Jews, was pre-eminent
in honor and dignity, both in the Age of Ignorance and in the Age of
Islam. The most superstitious races of men, and those that are the
highest in intelligence among the most civilized, have and require no
shrines. In Arabia the whole Desert was the temple of the Supreme God.
Associated with the most exalted ideas of divine power were to be
found superstitions usually encountered only in the primitive epochs
of society. The wide-spread worship of the generative forces of
nature, whose remaining monuments seem to the uninstructed sense of
our cavilling age mere evidences of a depraved imagination, had its
share of public favor in Arabia, where the male and female principles
were adored under various symbolical forms. Many of these have
survived in the monoliths scattered throughout the Peninsula, whose
towering masses are regarded, even by devout Moslems, with no small
degree of superstitious awe. The stone-circles and menhirs mentioned
by travellers as existing in Oman and Nedjd are evidently of the
same general type as those of Carnac and Stonehenge, and, from the
descriptions given of them, of scarcely inferior dimensions, and
perhaps of still higher antiquity. It is a singular circumstance, that
gigantic structures, bearing such a common resemblance as to suggest
that they were erected by the same race of builders and designed for
similar purposes, should be found in countries so different in physical
features, climate, inhabitants, religious traditions, language, and
history, as Central Arabia and Western Europe.
Like other nations of ancient times, the Arabs invested certain trees
with a sacred character, a custom indicative of the lingering influence
of phallicism; a worship whose original principles, long forgotten in
the Peninsula, survived only in the exhibition of its peculiar emblems
and in the practice of a gross and shameless immorality. Among the
Pagan Arabs, no form of superstition was too debasing to claim its
votaries. They raised altars to fire. They attributed supernatural
powers to the crocodile and the serpent. Each tent had its image;
every hovel of sun-dried bricks was filled with tutelary deities.
Shapeless masses of stone, which tradition had associated with
remarkable events or endowed with celestial origin, were approached
with a reverence not vouchsafed to idols of the most costly materials
and elaborate workmanship. Of these blocks, which partook of the nature
of the fetich, the black were sacred to the Sun, the white to the Moon.
In the Pagan world two of the former were especially famous; over one
was erected a splendid temple on the mountain near Emesa in Syria,
whence the infamous Roman emperor Heliogabalus derived his name; the
other was built into the wall of the Kaaba of Mecca. The latter was the
most remarkable object of the kind known to antiquity. A plain fragment
of basalt, seven inches in diameter, whose composition is apparently
identical with that of a neighboring mountain, it had acquired, in
the eyes of the people of Arabia, a sanctity not shared by any other
emblem of idolatrous worship. It was probably, in its origin, a phallic
symbol, and stood alone in an open square of the city, ages preceding
the building of the Kaaba, an event which tradition has assigned to a
date four hundred years before the foundation of the temple of Solomon.
Thus invested with the sanction of immemorial prescription and the
virtues of a miraculous relic, it has received the reverent homage of
millions upon millions of idolaters and Moslems. It has survived the
accidents of conquest, of iconoclasm, of conflagration. The silver
bands which unite its fragments bear witness to the vicissitudes
and rough usage to which it has been subjected. The healing power
it was supposed to possess attracted the sick and the disabled from
regions far beyond the limits of Arabia. It was the starting-point
of ceremonial and pilgrimage. It imparted its virtues to the Kaaba,
that temple where alone, in all the Peninsula, hereditary feuds were
suspended; where violence was forgotten; where rudeness gave way to
courtesy; where the temporary surrender of individual freedom, and
the voluntary relinquishment of tribal animosity, seemed to announce
the existence of national sentiment and the possibility of national
union. The recognition by Mohammed of the claims of the Black Stone
and the Kaaba--the ancient temple of Saturn--to public veneration, in
a creed otherwise uncompromisingly hostile to idolatry, demonstrated
the high estimation in which they were held by the Arabs. The latter,
with their numerous shrines, their swarms of deities, their elaborate
paraphernalia of worship and imposture, were, however, far from being
a religious people. They evinced a decided aversion to metaphysics.
Their ideas of personal liberty were not consistent with unquestioning
submission to the tyranny of a priesthood. Their native intelligence
rendered them. skeptical; their nomadic habits were unfavorable to
the maintenance of a permanent ecclesiastical establishment. The
multiplicity of deities had, as is invariably the case, weakened the
faith of the masses in any. The genuine piety of a people is always in
an inverse ratio to the number of its gods.
The early Arabians practised magic and divination, had recourse to
oracles, maintained wizards and sorcerers--charlatans whose ascendency
was largely due to the narcotics they made use of to open a pretended
communication with the spirit world. Amulets were universally worn as
a protection against the baneful consequences of the evil eye. Hand
in hand with presages and magical arts, auguries, and incantations,
came the incipient doctrine of the influence of the planets upon
mineral substances, as well as a belief in their power to affect the
destiny and welfare of man; theories which, eventually developing into
the vain pursuits of alchemy and judicial astrology, indicate an
acquaintance with the principles of science only acquired by much study
and repeated experiments. The practice of these rites, so severely
reprobated in the Koran, was associated in the minds of the people
with the ceremonies of public worship during the age of polytheism.
The words altar and talisman are practically synonymous in Arabic, a
fact which discloses the intimate alliance originally existing between
divination, sorcery, and religion in the Peninsula.
Human sacrifices, so repugnant to all our ideas of piety and justice,
but common to nations of Semitic origin, were of frequent occurrence
among the Arabs before Mohammed. The mode of death was by fire, which
removed every earthly impurity; but it was only in the fulfilment of
a solemn vow, on an occasion of national rejoicing, or to avert some
impending calamity, that such a costly expiation was exacted. The
Israelites, allied to the Arabs by the ties of consanguinity, and by
similar religious conceptions, had also long been familiar with these
revolting and cruel rites; instances of whose observance will at once
suggest themselves to all who are familiar with the Pentateuch.
The Hebrew has always exerted a remarkable influence upon the public
sentiment, the religious faith, and the foreign and domestic relations
of the inhabitants of Arabia. A great analogy exists between the
languages of the two nations, and the Hebrew alphabet was used by the
prehistoric Arabs. It is believed by many Oriental scholars that Israel
was not the founder of the people who bear his name; that the twelve
tribes have a mystic relation to certain of the heavenly bodies or to
the months of the year; and it is known that the word Keturah means
simply “frankincense.” No doubt now exists that the Jew and the Arab
are of common ancestry. For a period of twenty-five hundred years
before the Hegira the former had been established in Yemen. The trade
of that kingdom, with all its vast ramifications, was in his hands. His
power enabled him constantly to dictate the policy of its sovereigns.
His worship, equally idolatrous with that of the Bedouin--for he was
the descendant of the Simeonites, against whom, among others, the
anathemas of the Bible were directed--surpassed the latter in the
splendor of its appointments and the insolence of its priests. In
a land where toleration was otherwise universal, he was enabled to
persecute, with implacable enmity, Christian exiles, whom even the
rapacity of the desert freebooter had spared. The rich settlements
of northwestern Arabia were, to all intents and purposes, Jewish
colonies. In the barren and inhospitable region of the Hedjaz, the Jew
founded the towns of Medina and Mecca. In such a congenial atmosphere,
the superstitions of Asia Minor obtained a ready acceptance. He
established the worship of Baal, the most renowned of the Phœnician
divinities. He introduced the rite of circumcision, hitherto unknown in
Arabia. He communicated his idolatrous observances to the population
of the country which had offered him a refuge. He gave a name to
its principal city, for the word Mecca is Hebrew, signifying “Great
Field of Battle;” the Pagan ceremonial of the Hedjaz can be traced to
Palestine, and the Kaaba was originally known as Beth-El, “The House
of God.” Quick to recognize the advantages to be derived by commerce
from religious pilgrimage, he made that city the centre of national
devotion as well as the chief distributing point of the vast trade
of Europe, Asia Minor, Ethiopia, and India. The excellent commercial
situation of Mecca, near the Red Sea and on the great caravan highway
connecting Syria and Yemen, could scarcely compensate, however, for
the serious physical disadvantages which unfriendly nature had imposed
upon it. Its houses were crowded into a narrow valley two miles long
by only nine hundred feet wide. The rays of a vertical sun beat
pitilessly down upon a landscape destitute of verdure. Water, the most
priceless of blessings in the Desert, was scarce and unpalatable. A
salt effervescence covered the neighboring plains. The seasons were
irregular; storms were violent; the coast of the Hedjaz possessed the
unenviable reputation of being one of the most pestilential in the
world. The city was dependent upon trade for the necessaries of life,
and the unexpected delay of the caravan often menaced the population
with famine. Yet, with all these drawbacks, the commerce of Mecca
flourished almost beyond precedent. Caravans of more than two thousand
camels were no uncommon sight in its narrow streets. Each of these
beasts of burden carried a load of four hundred pounds of rare and
costly commodities,--silks, spices, ivory, gold-dust, and perfumes.
The annual exports of the town in the closing days of Pagan ascendency
reached the enormous sum of fifteen million dollars, half of which was
profit. Not the least of the sources of gain to the people of Mecca
were the valuable offerings left by pilgrims and merchants in their
temples. For a distance of leagues the ground was holy, and all who
trod upon it could claim the right of sanctuary. The blood of neither
man nor beast could be shed within these sacred precincts without
incurring the imputation of sacrilege and the punishment of death.
There was no traveller, from whatever country he came, who could not
find, among the innumerable idols of the Kaaba, a familiar divinity
upon whom to bestow the tribute of his devotion or gratitude. Of the
immense profits resulting from the politic combination of traffic and
superstition, the Hebrew exacted the lion’s share. His rulers met each
day at the Kaaba to exchange views on finance and theology. The heathen
legends of Palestine were incorporated into the new system, with the
astral worship of the Sabeans and the polytheism of the aboriginal
inhabitants of the Desert, itself derived from a thousand different
and uncertain sources. The monotheism of Israel was not recognized by
the tribe of Simeon, which had been driven into exile long before the
Pentateuch was written. Ideas thus blended in the popular mind for
centuries might, under favorable conditions, be modified, but never
obliterated. There is no question that Islam is largely Hebrew in
origin, although a considerable number of its ceremonies can be deduced
from the customs of Pagan Arabia. In their migrations, which closed
with the settlement of the Hedjaz, the Jews, while wandering far, had
at last returned to the cradle of their race.
The arbitrary rules of ceremonial cleanliness; the exclusion of blood
from the precincts of the temple; the classification of certain
animals as “holy,” which an error of the translator has transformed
into “unclean;” the penalties for many offences; the adoration
of Phœnician divinities; the nomenclature disclosed by family
genealogies; the correspondence in meaning of many terms used in their
languages--peculiarities common to both the Arab and the Jew--go
farther to prove an intimate relationship between the two races than
the uncertainties of tradition or the association of neighborhood would
tend to establish. The antipathy to the Hebrew, subsequently so bitter
among Mohammedans, did not exist in ancient Arabia. The Jew served with
distinction in the armies of Khaled and Amru. Mutual aversion, however
great in subsequent times, was never sufficient to induce the Israelite
to destroy those whom he regarded as his kinsmen. As his myths had
formed the basis of a new religion, his enterprise and assistance
contributed, in no insignificant degree, to the foundation of a new
and magnificent empire. He guided the councils of the most renowned
Mohammedan princes. Without the dogmas he furnished, the history
of Islam would never have been written. Without the suggestions he
voluntarily offered, and the treasure he poured into the Moslem camps,
the conquest of Spain could never have been achieved. The fairest of
Mussulman writers have rarely failed to acknowledge the obligations of
their countrymen to an unfortunate race which the prejudices of nearly
twenty centuries have subjected to universal proscription.
Christianity made no progress in Arabia until after its political
alliance with Constantine had imparted such a tremendous impulse to the
dissemination of its doctrines. The latter do not seem to be adapted
to the Asiatic mind, and have never been able either to appeal to the
reason or to arouse the enthusiasm of nations of Semitic blood. It
offered little that was congenial with, and much that was abhorrent
to, the lax and tolerant code of the independent and polytheistic
rovers of the Desert. At the birth of Mohammed it had already, for
four centuries, been established in the Peninsula, and still, in the
very shadow of its temples, the mocking Arab bowed before his thousand
gods. The principles of the Ebionite sect, which prevailed in the
Arabian churches, so far from attracting the curiosity or awakening the
reverence of the sarcastic Bedouin, only served to excite his ridicule.
The sublime truths of the religion of the Bible, the eloquence of
its teachers, the piety of its saints, the pomp of its ritual, the
promises and threats of its revelation, were lost upon the reckless
freebooters, devoted to sensual pleasures, to escapades of gallantry,
to the generous rivalry of poesy, to daring feats of arms. The only
mark of attention its adherents received was their classification with
the despised Hebrew as Ahl-al-Kitab, “The People of the Book.” In
its adaptability to the requirements and the mental capacity of the
multitude, it was ill-fitted to cope with the religion that eventually
supplanted it. On one side were the incomprehensible dogmas of a
debased Christianity, indispensable to its acceptance; on the other,
the simplicity of the profession of Islam, which even a child could
understand. For these reasons it made comparatively few proselytes in
the Peninsula, and at no time was acknowledged over any considerable
area, except during the short period which intervened between the
Abyssinian conquest of Yemen and the rise of Mohammedanism.
Many of the rites and customs adopted by the great Lawgiver, or
preserved by his followers and generally regarded as peculiar to Islam,
antedated the Koran by centuries. The Mohammedan attitudes of worship
are the same as those depicted upon the eternal monuments of the
Pharaohs. The heathen pilgrims, clad in the Ihram, or sacred garment,
seven times made the circuit of the Kaaba; embraced the Black Stone;
ran the courses between the holy stations of Al-Safa and Al-Marwa;
cast stones in the valley of Mina; performed the ancient duties of
sacrifice and local pilgrimage, and were systematically plundered by
the greedy and scoffing Meccans, just as all good Moslem pilgrims are
to-day. The primitive Arabs inculcated the duty of personal cleanliness
by frequent ablution. They shaved their heads, and used the depilatory
for the removal of superfluous hair from the body. Like the Egyptians,
they stained their hands and feet with henna, and blackened their
eyelids with antimony. They removed their sandals, as Moses did, when
they stood on holy ground. They scrupulously abstained from certain
kinds of food, and their actions were often governed by regulations
practically identical, in their general character, with those
prescribed by the canons of Jewish and Moslem law.
The spirit of Arabian genius, destined in subsequent ages to effect
such a revolution in the literary and scientific history of the world,
had in the sixth century of the Christian era disclosed no indications
of its gigantic powers. No condition of existence could be less
suggestive of a capacity for intellectual achievement than that whose
main dependence was violence and plunder. The Arab of that epoch had
no written records save a few obscure inscriptions in the Himyarite
dialect, which have been deciphered by the plodding industry of modern
scholars, and are, for the most part, epitaphs. Traditions, modified or
corrupted by the vanity or the prejudice of each successive generation,
were the sole and uncertain reliance of the chronicler. The power of
memory by which these were retained and transmitted from an unknown
antiquity seems absolutely miraculous and incredible.
Although destitute of authentic history, and even unskilled in
the common arts by which a nation’s glory may be perpetuated, the
early Arab excelled in a species of literary composition in which
barbarian races have always exhibited the greatest proficiency. A
talent for poetry, which invariably attains its highest development
among those least exposed to the practical ideas and refined vices of
civilization, was considered by the Bedouin as the most noble of human
accomplishments. His temperament, his situation, his pursuits, rendered
him peculiarly susceptible to the charms of the Muse. His spirit was
impetuous, his invention inexhaustible, his imagination riotous, his
enthusiasm unbounded. From an abnormally sensitive nervous organization
which nature had bestowed upon him, on occasions of prolonged mental
excitement often proceeded an hysterical frenzy, a state declared
by the most renowned of poets to be indispensable for perfection in
his art. The scenery of the Desert; its impressive solitudes; the
enchanting illusions of the mirage; the magnificent constellations of
the tropical heavens; the life of incessant peril; the exploits of
romantic gallantry; the nocturnal excursion,--the surprise, the battle,
the retreat, the rescue,--these all stimulated the imaginative faculty
of the Arab, and urged him to the cultivation of a talent which might
transmit to posterity events whose immortality was at once his personal
title to honor, the pastime of his camp-fire, and the glory of his
tribe. In the means at his disposal the poet enjoyed a rare, almost
a unique advantage. The energy and softness of the Arabian language,
its melodious character, the abundance and variety of its metaphors,
render it peculiarly available as the vehicle of poetic sentiment.
There is perhaps no idiom which lends itself with such facility to the
construction of rhyme; for its very prose is frequently musical. The
researches of modern philology have brought to the notice of Europe the
complexity and perfection of its grammatical construction, the richness
of its vocabulary, its boundless scope and graceful imagery. Most
appropriately did the old philosopher, Mohammed-al-Damiri, referring to
the native eloquence and exuberant diction of his countrymen, exclaim:
“Wisdom hath lighted on three things,--the brain of the Franks, the
hands of the Chinese, and the tongues of the Arabs.”
The poetry of the Arabs is even more obscure in its origin than the
primitive history of their race. Without the assistance of writing,
no literature, however popular, can maintain its integrity for even
a single generation. Even the phenomenal memory of that people--a
gift so universal as not to elicit comment among them, and which was
strengthened by the daily rehearsal of favorite compositions--could
only imperfectly supply the place of permanent and authentic records.
The matter of the Arabian poems was therefore constantly changing,
while the subjects and versification remained the same. Their form
was generally that of the dramatic pastoral; sometimes the elegiac
ode, which offered an opportunity for the enumeration of the virtues
of the deceased and, incidentally, of the achievements of his tribe,
was adopted. The genius of the pre-Islamitic poet never attempted the
epic, which so often profits by the inexhaustible resources of the
fabulous; and, although surrounded by an atmosphere eminently favorable
to the inspiration of such productions, it does not seem to have had
an adequate conception of them. Its representations exhibited to the
enraptured listener the stirring events of his adventurous life,
which his pride taught him to regard as vastly superior, in all that
promotes the dignity of humanity, to the corrupt and inert existence of
civilization. The universal possession of the poetic faculty was one
of the peculiarities of the Arab nation. Old and young alike seemed
gifted with it. The rules of prosody, and even the simplest canons
of metrical composition, were unknown. Yet such was the instinctive
perception of rhythmical correctness, that the versification of the
most humble was characterized by propriety and elegance, qualities
which tended to enhance the fierce enthusiasm, the sublimity of
thought, the touching pathos, the burning passion, which pervade
the noble poems of the Desert. Many of the latter bear a striking
resemblance to the Song of Solomon; some are remarkable for their
rhapsodies; others for their weighty and sententious wisdom; others
again for their sparkling wit and pointed epigrams. The seven poems
called Moallakat, “The Suspended,”--a word of doubtful significance
so far as its relation to these productions is concerned--have always
been considered the masterpieces of the ancient Arabs, and form the
principal source from which our ideas of their attainments in the art
of poetry must be derived. Popular credulity ascribed the name of these
compositions to their presumed suspension in the Kaaba as evidence of
the triumphs of their authors over all competitors; the more rational
conjecture, however, connects the title of Moallakat with a necklace
or pendant, of which each poem formed a jewel, a figurative mode of
designating literary works among Orientals, and one especially affected
by poets and historians. The entire body of tradition, combined with
facts accumulated by subsequent writers of every race and creed, does
not afford such a thorough insight into the public and domestic life,
the prevailing sentiments and prejudices, the habits and customs of
the inhabitants of the Peninsula, as do the Moallakat. They enable us
partially to reconstruct the political and religious systems of the
early Arabians, and to establish, by comparison, their identity with
the conditions of modern existence, in localities where the sword of
Islam has never been able to exterminate the detested practice of
idolatry. They place before us, in all its impressiveness, the silent
majesty of the Desert, its dazzling sky, its waves of quivering vapor,
its interminable waste of sand; they pass in review the indolent
life of the camp, varied only by a nocturnal alarm or by some daring
intrigue; they relate the exciting scenes of the foray; they delineate
with erotic freedom the charms of the lovely Bedouin maid; they
describe the fate of the female prisoner whose captivity was often
the result of artifice or barter; they rehearse the midnight march
under the starry firmament, which in the florid language of the East
“appeared like the folds of a silken sash variously decked with gems.”
Nor is the excellence of the Moallakat confined to mere description.
The proud boast of exploits not unworthy of the Age of Chivalry, which,
in fact, received its inspiration from this source; the sacred duties
of a lavish hospitality; the rare qualities of a favorite horse or
camel; the absorbing passion of love, its perils and its pleasures; the
Herculean feats of virile manhood,--these were the chosen themes of
the Arab poet. His verses abound in moral precepts and philosophical
apothegms, conveying lessons of worldly wisdom which recall, in both
their phraseology and their profound acquaintance with human nature,
the Suras of the Koran and the Proverbs of Solomon. In addition to
maxims of a moral tone, scattered through these productions, they
exhibit, on the other hand, much that is repulsive, cruel, and
barbarous. Epicureanism is, however, the prominent characteristic of
the Moallakat, as, indeed, it is of all primitive Arabic poems which
have descended to us. The charms of wine and women, and an indulgence
in the pleasures of the banquet to the extreme limit of bacchanalian
revelry, are everywhere celebrated with a license worthy of the
grossest couplets of Catullus and Martial. In the relation of scenes of
intrigue and midnight assignation, often laid in the camp of a hostile
tribe, where discovery would have led to instant death, the adventurous
spirit of the lover is deemed worthy to rank with that which
sustains the hero in the front of battle. The most fulsome adulation
characterizes the homage tendered by the ardent lover to the object of
his idolatry. Modern fastidiousness would not tolerate the descriptions
given by the poet of the physical perfections of his lady-love in all
their circumstantial details; though translations exist, they are mere
paraphrases; and the voluptuous images of the poet’s fancy still
remain discreetly hidden in the obscurity of the original idiom.
There is much similarity and repetition in Arab poetry, which the
interpolations and substitutions inevitable among a people dependent
for the preservation of their literature upon oral tradition will
hardly account for.
The existence of the Bedouin was bounded by a narrow horizon, the
Desert was his world. Its familiar objects and localities, which never
changed; the deeds which they recalled; the hopes which they inspired;
the memory of ancestral renown with which they were associated,
suggested the topics of his song. The haughtiness which was one of his
most offensive characteristics, and forbade his permanent alliance
or his intermarriage with other races, strengthened the feelings
of reserve which had been a national peculiarity for countless
generations. His ideas, his aspirations, his joys, his sorrows, evoked
by the monotonous circumstances of his environment, were little subject
to deviation during the course of centuries. While his religion was a
compound of all degrees of fetichism, idolatry, and astral worship,
his poetry was original, pure, artless, and natural. His aptitude for
versification was disclosed by the most trivial occurrences of life. A
rhyming stanza, which set forth an appropriate sentiment, was often the
reply to an ordinary question. Where allusion was made to an historical
incident, the speaker was often challenged to confirm his statement by
the recitation of an original verse, or by an apt poetical quotation,
as the most reliable authority. The quick perception of the Arab was
shown by his ability to finish instantly a couplet corresponding in
sense and measure with a line repeated by a competitor. Its general
similarity to all others renders the assignment of any Arabic poem to a
certain epoch impossible, for the natural taste has never varied, and
a composition that was popular three hundred years before the Hegira
would be equally acceptable to-day to the mountain tribes of Central
Arabia.
In the opening lines of most Arabic poems, and in those of the
Moallakat especially, there is a dearth of individuality, and a common
resemblance which would almost suggest that they had been written
by the same person. The purity of style which characterizes the
latter was, however, universally admitted; they were the recognized
standards of grammatical correctness; they were consulted whenever a
dispute arose concerning the meaning of a word or the construction of
a sentence in later authors was in doubt; and among Mohammedans the
authority of those Pagan compositions was never entirely superseded
even by that of the Koran, whose sublimity of thought and elegance of
diction were reverently ascribed to the direct inspiration of God.
We owe the survival of the Moallakat to the capricious taste of some
self-appointed critic, who selected them from a number of poems
with which he was familiar; and, through his arbitrary choice, we
are deprived of the opportunity of forming an opinion of the others
which his rejection has tacitly pronounced inferior. We know nothing
of his qualifications for such a task, and are even ignorant of his
name; but, from the remaining fragments of these productions, we may
safely conclude that some of them, at least, were as fully entitled to
preservation as the seven more fortunate ones which have descended to
posterity.
It is a remarkable fact that no Arabic poem shows traces of Hebrew
influence or contains ideas borrowed from either the Scriptures
or the Talmud. The wealth and political power of the Jews; their
intimate association with the nomadic tribes of the Peninsula; a
close similarity of traditions, customs, and language, produced no
perceptible effect upon the prehistoric literature of the Arabs. The
Hebrews of Arabia, nevertheless, had their poets, whose productions, on
the other hand, exhibit a marked coincidence of thought and style with
those of their Arab kinsmen. Their sentiments are lofty and admirable,
their language pure, and their merit, while inferior to that of the
Moallakat, is still far from contemptible. The Book of Job, which
has no apparent connection with the rest of the Scriptures, has been
pronounced by competent critics a translation of an Arabic poem.
Improvisation, a talent possessed only by those endowed with unusual
readiness of perception, a lively imagination, and an inexhaustible
command of language, was practised with great success by the itinerant
poets of Arabia. From their auditors, a couplet happily applied, by
the inspiration of the moment, to some well-known event, elicited far
more applause than efforts, however meritorious, which had cost days
of arduous labor. This art of extemporaneous composition, which, when
thoroughly developed, implies the possession of extraordinary mental
ability, carried into Europe by the Moslems, and long employed by the
troubadours, now survives only among the lowest class of the Italian
peasantry. It is, in our day, most difficult to determine what degree
of authenticity may properly be ascribed to the poetry of the ancient
Arabs, none of which ascends to a higher antiquity than two hundred
years before the Hegira. The unreliability of oral tradition, the
variety of dialects, the frequent substitutions of modern phraseology,
the bad faith, interpolations, and mistakes of unscrupulous
commentators, the corruption and suppression of passages through tribal
prejudice--all of these causes have had their share in effecting the
gradual deterioration of the grand and stirring poems of Arabia.
It is impossible for us to appreciate the influence exercised by those
who had attained to eminence in the poetic art over their imaginative
and passionate countrymen. The Arab bard was without exception the
most important personage of his tribe. Wealth, rank, beauty, personal
popularity, military distinction alike paid tribute to his genius.
To his talent for improvisation and versification, he often united
the threefold character of statesman, warrior, and knight-errant, and
thus became the model of his associates, the idol of the fair sex,
and the terror of his enemies, who were as sensitive to the poisoned
shafts of his satire as to the keenness of his sword. The most famous
of these rhyming paladins, and the author of one of the Moallakat,
whose life and achievements have been made the subject of a romance
which approaches more nearly to the nature of an epic than any other
production in the Arabic language, was Antar. By instinct and training
a Bedouin, he was, however, of Arab blood only on his father’s side,
his mother having been an Abyssinian slave. According to the custom of
his country, he shared her lot until his bravery in battle induced his
father to emancipate him. His amatory exploits, as well as his daring
enterprises against the enemy, made him the admiration of the fiery
Arabian youth. It was the regret of Mohammed, often expressed, that
he had never seen this knight-errant of the Desert, who shrank from
no danger, however appalling, who redressed the wrongs of woman, who
restored the property of the plundered, and whose favorite maxim was,
“Bear not malice, for of malice good never came.”
The unbridled license of the Arabian poet offers a curious commentary
on national manners. The most exalted dignity, the sacred attributes
of the gods, the pride of opulence, the delicacy of the sex, were
not exempt from the attacks of his venom and sarcasm. He exposed
with relentless severity the frailties of the wife and daughters of
the sheik. He boasted of his own intrigues with a shameless audacity
which, under more refined social conditions, could only be atoned
for with blood. The immunity he enjoyed was one of the prerogatives
of his calling. A certain sacredness of character was believed to
attach to the latter by reason of the demoniac possession to which was
popularly attributed the inspiration of the poetic faculty. His verses
abounded in chivalrous sentiments, but uniformly ignored the claims
of religion to the veneration of mankind. No beautiful mythology,
like that of ancient Greece, was at hand to prompt the efforts of his
muse. The maxims of the luxurious Epicurean were those that exerted
the greatest power over his imagination and his life. An idea may be
formed of the influence of poetry. on the public mind when we remember
that the Koreish in vain attempted to bribe the pagan bard Ascha to
deliver a panegyric on Mohammed at the commencement of the latter’s
career, and, unable to secure his compliance, succeeded with much
difficulty in purchasing his neutrality and silence at the expense of
a hundred camels. The Prophet was so sensitive to the keen thrusts
of the satirist, that when Mecca was captured and a general amnesty
proclaimed, one of the four unfortunates whom he expressly excluded
from this act of clemency was an obscure poet, Habbar-Ibn-Aswad by
name, who had published a lampoon against him. The Arabian bard, like
his literary descendant the troubadour, was attended by minstrels who
chanted his verses, often to the accompaniment of musical instruments.
The latter vocation, regarded as degrading by the Bedouin, was always
exercised by a slave.
Islamism, while in other directions it zealously promoted the
intellectual development of its adherents, fell like a blight upon the
poetic taste and genius of Arabia. The dreams of the poet disappeared
before the stern fanaticism of the soldier, who had no time for
rhapsodies, and cared for nothing save indulgence in rapine, the
acquisition of empire, and the extension of the Faith.
It is now generally admitted that the literary contests said to have
taken place during the annual fair at Okhad, where, from poems read
before an immense concourse, the one to be suspended in the Kaaba was
selected, are apocryphal. Tribes of vagrant robbers who passed ten
months of the year in plundering their neighbors would hardly consent
to spend the other two in an orderly assembly, composed mainly of
their enemies, in determining by a popular vote the comparative merit
of their respective poets. The settlement of such rival claims for
intellectual precedency by the voice of the people implies a degree
of culture and critical acumen certainly not possessed by the Arabs
of that age. This idle tale has doubtless been suggested by the
literary exhibitions of the Olympian games, and is perhaps indebted
to the imagination of some garrulous and mendacious Greek for its
origin. It is, however, unquestionable that the poet, as well as the
story-teller--that other important personage in the East--was in high
favor at all the fairs and assemblies of Arabia. The mixed multitude
which, impelled by motives partly mercenary, partly religious,
collected on these occasions, and in its hours of leisure listened to
the verses of the poet, constantly promoted his inspiration and refined
his lays by the hope of applause, the fear of censure, the collision
with foreigners, and the powerful influence of tribal emulation.
The later history of the Arabs is decked with all the gorgeous imagery
of the East. The fascinations of romance invest and embellish it. With
the commonplace facts incident to the various stages of national
progress are interwoven narratives of indisputable truth, but which, in
their demands upon human credulity, almost surpass the fabulous legends
of chivalry or the enchanting tales of Scheherezade. The primitive
life of the Arabian people previous to the advent of Mohammed offered
no indication of their extraordinary capability for improvement.
Commercial intercourse with other nations for ages had, however,
enlarged their experience, expanded their faculties, and aroused their
ambition. The caravan winding amidst the lonely sand-hills of the
Desert--the precursor of those great expeditions which subsequently
interchanged the commodities of Asia Minor, Egypt, Andalusia, and
India--was also the more important agent of science, of refinement,
of civilization. It increased the sum of geographical and historical
knowledge. It familiarized the trader and his customers with the
manners, the laws, the social systems, the mechanical skill, the arts,
and the inventions of the most enterprising nations of the globe. These
associations assisted in no small degree to generate the practical
utility which, the most important feature of Arab learning, afterwards
conferred such substantial blessings on mankind. The phenomenal advance
of the race to maturity, impossible without previous preparation, was
stimulated by perpetual wars and excitement. Less than one hundred
and twenty years intervened between the vagabondage and ignorance of
the Desert and the stability and intellectual culture of the great
Abbaside and Ommeyade capitals. The career of the Arab was too rapid to
be permanent. In four generations it had covered the ground ordinarily
traversed in twenty. Its delusive splendor concealed the decay which
was coincident with the era of its greatest prosperity. The same
causes which facilitated the foundation and advancement of his power
and culture were active during their decline, and contributed to their
ultimate destruction.
The statement may appear paradoxical, in view of the acknowledged
influence of mercantile associations upon the faculties of the human
mind; but a certain degree of isolation seems to be necessary, at least
in tropical and semi-tropical regions, for the complete development of
the arts of civilization; and these arts have usually attained their
highest perfection among nations which inhabit peninsulas. Egypt and
China, whose reliance was entirely upon their own resources, were the
most exclusive of nations in the ancient world, as were Mexico and
Peru in the modern. The vast majority of the populations of India,
Japan, and Spain had but little intercourse with those outside their
boundaries, which were defended by stormy and mysterious seas. In
no other countries have the powers of the human intellect, in the
creation of all that is grand and imposing, of all that is beautiful,
of all that is artistic, of all that contributes to the benefit, the
cultivation, and the material improvement of mankind, been manifested
as in Greece and Italy. And Arabia, although denied by Nature the
advantages of soil and climate enjoyed by more favored lands, yet
possessed what, in the crisis of her fate, rendered her superior to all
her adversaries,--a race of bold and hardy warriors inured to hardship
by the privations of an abstemious life, and by habit and inclination
capable of the most arduous and desperate enterprises. Their experience
with the surrounding effeminate nations had taught them not only
the weakness of the latter, but also how their coveted wealth might
be obtained; and at a propitious moment, under the guidance of an
impassioned enthusiast, a horde of outlaws, driven from their homes by
their scandalized neighbors, became the nucleus of victorious armies
the fame of whose gallantry filled the world. And yet, while glorying
in the deeds of martial heroism which insured the establishment
and maintenance of her Prophet’s faith, she was conscious of the
instability of an empire sustained by arms alone, and labored to raise
upon more substantial and enduring foundations the splendid fabric of
her greatness. The same fervid impulse which prompted and carried to
a successful issue the conquest or extermination of those designated
by the comprehensive term of infidel was able to adapt itself with
singular facility to all the conditions of peace, and to enable the
posterity of the half-naked banditti that swarmed around the banner of
Mohammed to accomplish results worthy of the most exalted genius, and
in every department of knowledge to ascend to the highest rank of those
celebrated for their literary and scientific attainments in the most
polished communities of Asia and Europe.